A quatre mains: a piece for four hands
by Experimental
Summary: A story about the proverbial fine line: the line between love and hate. In search of his old friend, Trowa transfers to Ohtori Private Academy. But can he really hope for a return to the past? AU. GW characters in Utena universe.
1.

For my Friend—

I made this for you, the charmer,  
so you could spot my trouble from it.

* * *

_La vie s'arrange . . . mais autrement._  
Life always works out . . . not how you expect it.  
—Christopher Wood

* * *

A quatre mains  
_—A piece for four hands—_

The black car came to a stop in the deserted square before the administration building, and the young man inside stepped out. Polished shoes clicked on the brick as he turned to look up at the name on the building: Ohtori. The façade was enormous, and imposing in the way it resembled a church. The thick blankets of roses that embraced it gave only a false sense of cultivation, hiding the thorns underneath out of sight. He found it somewhat threatening, but at the same time welcoming—like the hand that beckons in supination while it holds the sword. He was prepared. He regarded the building as an opponent, his stare challenging and searching. Anxiety and eagerness both fluttered in his stomach. Yet he gave no outward sign of either as he stood with one hand on the open door, looking up over the car at his new home.

The other passenger thought she saw a look of hesitation—and doubt— "It's not too late to go back home, you know," she told him in the same careful tone one uses talking to a wild animal; "I mean, if you're having second thoughts."

"No," he answered. The chauffeur stepped out and opened the trunk to retrieve his luggage, and the young man looked down at her with a small smile of reassurance. "No, Cathrine, I'm not. I think this is exactly where I need to be."

But she frowned. In a black dress, in that black car with cream leather seats, she looked like she had the day their mother had been laid to rest, when, dry-eyed, she had worried over where he would live. "That's right," she said. "Your friends are here, aren't they?"

Friends. His real friends were back at St. Gabriels; only acquaintances stood before him now, except . . .

She scooted over to where he had been sitting and got out of the car to stand next to him. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" She gazed up at the building herself. Then she shook her head. "Oh, forget what I said," she amended and started to fix his tie, and brush the hair out of his eyes, and straighten his jacket which was already straight. "I'm being selfish. This is the opportunity of a lifetime, being accepted to one of the best prep schools around, and I do want you to be happy. It's just that it hurts to see you go. I'm going to miss you so much."

"Same here."

"Promise you'll write me." She said nothing of her father.

He smiled. "I promise."

At that she hugged him tight, her fingers digging into his back as though to make up for all the future hugs she would miss. He embraced his half-sister back, and laid an appreciative kiss on her crown, and breathed in the scent and felt the softness of her curly auburn hair one last time, even as he whispered into it: "This isn't forever, Cathy."

"I know," she mumbled against his shoulder. "But . . ." How far they'd come, since they first met that autumn day four years ago. How strange that now it seemed as though they had known each other forever. "It feels like it."

When they finally parted, more out of duty than will, he tipped the driver and waved to Cathrine until the black car was out of sight. Then he picked up his luggage and headed up the stairs toward the school entrance. Toward his new life.

* * *

He stood alone by the window when Wakaba saw him, looking down at the people gathered in the courtyard on their lunch break. He was tall and thin, but broad-shouldered, and she could tell there were strong muscles under the old, red-brown wool blazer he wore. His hair of the same color was brushed forward and hid one side of his face. But despite a somewhat scruffy appearance, there was a serious and studious, even noble air about him.

"Triton Bloom?" she asked as she approached him.

There was no response.

"Um, excuse me," she tried again with a little added persistence. "Are you Triton Bloom?"

The young man started, but quickly caught himself and turned to look at her.

Her heart skipped a beat. He was gorgeous! —No Utena Tenjou, of course, but handsome in a timid sort of way. He had a long face that reminded her somewhat of Saionji's, with a narrow chin and pouty lips, and a most elegant nose. His brilliant, olive green eyes were gentle and guarded, like his sudden smile. "Yes, that's me," he said. His voice was soft and reserved. "I'm sorry, I guess I didn't hear you the first time."

"Well, that's all right." She cleared her throat and extended her hand. "Welcome to the Ohtori Peers Academy, new student! I'm Wakaba Shinohara, an eighth grade student here."

He took her hand. "Triton Bloom. Tenth grade."

"I know." She beamed. "They asked me to show you around, so here I am! Did they give you your dorm key?" He reached inside his jacket and took it from his breast pocket to show her. "Well, then, let's go!" She grabbed his wrist, and he managed to grab hold of his suitcase before he was whisked away.

She showed him to the dorms first so he could drop off his luggage, telling him about the school and its history and pointing out places of interest along the way. Then they were off for a tour of the grounds, and she helped him find his classrooms.

He didn't say much of anything the whole time, unless she asked him a question that required a verbal response. The echoes of their footsteps in the empty halls made those quiet moments awkward. But it was endearing, his silence, and odd; and she asked him about it as they sat beside the fountain, the vague sounds of a lesson drifting to them through an open window.

He looked puzzled at her question, which instantly made her regret it—what if he never spoke to her again?—but he only said: "I'm sorry. I just don't usually say anything when I have nothing to say."

"Oh," she said, and neither said anything for another minute, though it seemed longer than that to Wakaba. "So," she said at last, "tell me about yourself."

He gave her a strange look. "Like what?"

"I've told you all about the school, but I don't know anything about you. If you don't mind me saying, it's kind of a weird time of the year for a student to transfer. You know? I've heard a little about the Blooms—I guess they'd do something unconventional like that—but I didn't know Mr. Bloom had a son. Unless he just never talked about him. I haven't seen your name in any papers—"

"I don't want to talk about it," Triton said.

"Of course. I have to ask the right questions, right?" She smiled. "Are you from St. Gabriels?"

"Yes." He seemed to relax at that, a slight smile tugging at his own lips, and he crossed one leg over the other. "But you probably knew that already."

She blushed. Hard to tell if that counted as flirting, the way he was and how he said it, almost sarcastic but not in any cruel sort of way. "Well, yes," she said. "So you must know Relena Peacecraft and Dorothy Catalonia, right? They transferred here a year ago. So did Heero Yuy, but he was accepted into a technical university this year—"

"What?" Triton's eyes went wide as he turned to her.

"It's true," she said. "Isn't that amazing? Well, I can't say I envy him, but he is a real genius. Do you know him, Triton?"

He was silent for a moment—probably taking a trip down memory lane, she guessed. But when he answered, "He was a good friend of mine," there was no hint of emotion in his voice.

Wakaba beamed. She finally knew something about Triton, and even though it wasn't much—and the way he used past tense was weird—it was a start. There was something in his character that inspired her to want to help him and protect him—to bring out whatever it was that he was keeping locked inside. Like a puzzle just begging to be solved. She opened her mouth to say something more when the bells rang to signal the end of classes for the day.

"Come on!" she said, standing and pulling on his sleeve. "The fencing club meets after class. Let's go!"

He had no choice but to follow her—she was very strong for her age and size—but this time he actually seemed excited about going.

It was a nice day for the club to practice outside, and she led him to a place where they could watch the crowd that had gathered in the square below them. Many of the boys and girls were already dressed in white fencing jackets. Some were watching a fast-paced bout between two women on a makeshift strip outlined in chalk. Triton couldn't see their faces, but he recognized one by the thick platinum blond braid that snaked back and forth from under her mask with each lunge and parry.

"That's Juri Arisugawa," Wakaba said beside him, obviously referring to the other. "She's in the student council and captain of the fencing club. I think you have a class with her, too. She's tough as nails, just to give you the heads up, and not exactly all warm and fuzzy off the strip either. Do you fence, Triton?"

"A little," he started to say, but suddenly Wakaba stopped listening—in fact, stopped paying any attention to him whatsoever.

Her eyes were wide and shining as she pushed past him, and literally jumped on an athletic-looking girl in a dark boy's uniform. The other girl looked mortified, and more than a little overwhelmed, and blushed as Wakaba led her over to him. "This is my friend Utena Tenjou," Wakaba said, her voice brimming with pride. "Utena, this is Triton Bloom. He's going into the tenth grade, starting today."

"Nice to meet you," the girl said with a smile and slight toss of her pink hair. They shook hands.

"Likewise," Triton said.

Wakaba added, "He just transferred here from St. Gabriels."

"Really?" Utena's eyes widened. "That's so far away! —Hey, you must be a friend of Quatre's."

They didn't seem to notice, but at the mention of that name, Triton's heart jumped. He didn't have an opportunity to say anything, however, as Utena looked over the railing of the balcony, searching. "He usually comes to these meetings. . . . Ah." She pointed. "There he is."

Triton looked down, following her finger. Quatre was there sure enough, surrounded as always by girls. In their impossibly short skirts that passed as uniforms in this school. And he was smiling at them as he always had: kind, appreciative, encouraging. He had grown in the last year of absence, as well. He was taller, with more shape to him than Triton remembered. His uniform—not standard but student council fare, white with fourragere—only served to show off the change. With broader shoulders now over his high, narrow waist and long legs—it was no wonder he attracted such a crowd. And with his radiant smile and sincere blue eyes, and the strong chin he got from his father, he was the epitome of nobility.

Beside him, Wakaba leaned on the railing and sighed. "He's such a hottie."

"I guess," said Utena. She turned to Triton, flashing another smile. "I have to go, but it was nice meeting you. If you ever need anything, feel free to drop by." She waved.

"Wait for me! Utena!" Wakaba said, hurrying to join her and clinging to her arm. It didn't look like she was coming back for Triton, but he couldn't say he minded too much.

Enjoying being alone once again, he turned back to the action in the courtyard, leaning his elbows on the railing. The bout taking place below him must have been exciting by the sound of it—the rapid _clink-clink_ of the foils, the grunts of the fencers—but his attention was drawn elsewhere.

Quatre Raberba Winner.

The sight of him made Triton feel ill, but no one would have guessed it looking at him. Even then, no one could have guessed why.

* * *

"Come on, Quatre, for me? I want to see you bout!" Misa said as she clung to his arm. Or was it Risa? He couldn't remember all their names. He spent more time trying to be nice to them all than trying to keep them all straight. "Please, Qua-traaahh?"

"I can't," he said. "I'm supposed to be studying for an exam tomorrow. I shouldn't even be here."

"But you couldn't stay away?"

Quatre looked up to see Miki's sympathetic smile.

And smiled himself. "Yeah, I guess I couldn't." The girls moved away and began talking amongst each other, preferring to gab about the boys than listen in on their conversation. Quatre welcomed the change. But with the blue-haired boy's approach, he was reminded of the ring again, and it felt heavy on his finger. "It's something of an addiction, I guess. This reminds me of my old school. Every time I come I can't help looking for—"

He stopped. All of a sudden, it felt as though someone was watching him.

He turned and looked up above them at the balcony, sure that the feeling had come from that direction. His heart beat twice as fast. But the only one watching was the stone head of a lion protruding from one of the posts of the railing. For some odd reason, a wave of disappointment washed over him.

"What is it?" Miki asked. "Something wrong?"

Quatre shook his head. "It's nothing."

* * *

A sky-blue uniform draped over the back of a chair made him ask himself for the dozenth time that day: what am I doing here?

"Triton Bloom" said the card below the number on the door. He would have to get better at remembering that. Already he had forgotten a couple times, but it didn't seem anyone had noticed. They probably just thought he had poor hearing or daydreamed too much.

Sick of unpacking, he turned to the letters sitting on the nightstand. On top, a thick, unopened envelope that said "TROWA" in neat print on one side, and in a rushed scribbling on the back: "DO NOT OPEN till you get to your new place OR ELSE!" The "OR ELSE" had been crossed out with three straight lines, however, no doubt Wufei's work. Grinning at that, he sat down on the bed and opened the envelope to find two letters inside. The shortest was Wufei's, he guessed; he was a man of few, but always appropriate, words.

He picked up the longer one and unfolded the three pages, recognizing the neat, round handwriting as Duo's:

—

_Hey Trowa! How's everything going in your new place? Settling in nicely? How are the other students? That bad huh? Just kidding. But seriously, I know what it's like being in a strange school, being away from your friends and all (sniff-sniff). . . . We miss you, man! GET OUT OF THERE AS FAST AS YOU CAN!_

_OK, OK, I'll stop screwing around. I'm probably not helping any, seeing as you're the one at the new school. Which is really the whole point of this letter. Wufei and I thought it might help ease the loneliness a little if we put together a care package of sorts for ya. You know, since we can't be there in person maybe being able to hear from us like this might close the distance a little. Thought I'd send along some old photos to keep you company too. Wouldn't want you to forget what we look like!_

—

He found said photos folded securely inside Wufei's note, and laughed when he saw the first one. God, they brought back memories. Events, scenes he thought he had forgotten suddenly came rushing back. A science class trip to the beach in fifth grade. Heero and Wufei trying to fill out their worksheets while Duo put a sea cucumber down the back of Relena's coat. He'd had to sit in the front of the bus with their instructor on the ride back, and received a harsher physical punishment from Dorothy, but it had been worth it.

Going out bowling during summer break. Or to the latest giant robot movies, the smell of stale popcorn and that feeling of anticipation he got in his gut listening to the pre-show music while Wufei acted like a walking behind-the-scenes documentary and film critic in one.

Lunch outside in spring quarter, seventh grade. Feeding Relena's dog bologna sandwiches when she wasn't looking. Heero standing with his first place ribbon at the St. Gabriels Annual Science Fair. A year and two months ago, the school's spring ball, when his friends had surprised him: Those who had long claimed to hate social events searched out dates, while the one person who seemed to fit in the most had ended up sneaking out with him. A snapshot of himself with Duo and Wufei and Duo's girlfriend Hilde having a great time. He couldn't remember where it was taken, but looking at the carefree smiles on all the faces, he couldn't help smiling himself, feeling their warmth through the paper despite the pang of longing the memory caused. As he turned it over, he sighed. "So you don't forget what we look like."

How could I?

Then he frowned. A group photo of the members of the St. Gabriels fencing club. Heero was there, as well as Wufei, looking stoic as ever. As the captain, Nichol stood on one side, towering over the rest of them, glancing out of the corner of his eye at student body president Une on the other, who was only really there out of her presidential duties. He found himself in the center, those green eyes staring back at him like they belonged to someone else. Beside him on his left, Dorothy flashed her winning smirk. And on his right—

He scanned the other photos, but he found no other images of the towheaded boy standing beside him in the club photo.

Quatre. Just as Trowa remembered him. An eighth grader with a somewhat androgynous figure and a smile that could charm the most hardened heart, and you wouldn't be able to tell if it was sincere or sarcastic—nor care.

What am I doing here?

The answer was staring him in the face. Dredging up emotions that had begun to feel old and worn out, making them fresh again. Funny that he would travel halfway around the world and change everything he had been just to find an old friend. But then, Quatre wasn't just an old friend. Trowa's goal had been that much, he knew. But now that the goal was achieved . . .

What next?

Setting aside his friends' letters, he picked up the rest of the stack. A letter of congratulations Nichol had sent him during his short break; it had his home address on it. Transfer information from his old school that he had thought might someday come in handy. Addresses scribbled on a piece of stationery. And on the bottom of the stack, the last note he had received from Ohtori before his arrival.

For some reason, he felt a need to keep that letter a secret though there was no logical explanation for it. Even in the privacy of his dorm room he felt reluctant to look at it, in the off chance that another student would walk in and ask him questions. Questions he wanted to ask himself. No signature, and a vague scent of roses. It had been addressed to Triton Bloom, the name under which he had applied in the first place, after the name of his legal, and very wealthy, guardian; yet he had the strange feeling whoever had sent it knew full well it wasn't his real name, and didn't seem to mind.

Probably just paranoia, he had tried telling himself on several occasions. Oddly enough, the thought did not bother him now. But one thing did.

He tipped the envelope over, tapping the edge against his palm until the object within fell into his hand. It was a ring of white gold with an enamel or possibly cloisonné stylized rose with a small star in the center—the same stylized rose he had seen in the stained glass windows around campus. This school seemed to have an obsession with roses.

But so obsessed that they would give away rings to new students? The letter made no mention of it whatsoever—he had read it over several times to make sure. Nor was he sure what the sender—or senders—wanted him to do with it, or seen anyone else wearing one so far. So he decided that, better than wearing it on his finger for all the world to see, he would keep it in the pocket of his uniform just to cover his bases.

He sighed. Whatever it is—he told himself, setting the ring on the nightstand under the stack of letters—you're not going to do yourself any good worrying over it, Trowa. It was his first night on campus; and nothing was going to change the fact that he had hundreds more ahead of him. It would do him best to just relax and try to get some sleep.


	2. 

He was already in his seat by the time the first bell rang and had been for a while.

Arriving early to his first class of the day, history, having chosen an aisle seat toward the back of the room, he had taken out a pen and paper with some intention of writing a letter to his friends to let them know how he was settling in. Yet the minutes passed and he had managed nothing, his pen hovering at attention, his mind wandering to other things—to the future. Then the bell rang, and students began to trickle in. He sat back and watched them, looking for familiar faces. Quatre's even, though he knew they had different schedules on Fridays.

He recognized Dorothy and Relena Peacecraft as they entered together and went to take their seats across the aisle from him. He heard their chatter dwindle over his shoulder, and then felt a gentle tap. "Excuse me. Don't I know you?"

He looked up at them and smiled. "I'm not sure."

"You went to St. Gabriels with us, didn't you?" asked Relena.

He nodded. "Relena Peacecraft and Dorothy Catalonia. Yes, I remember."

The girls grinned at the recognition. "I thought you looked familiar," said Dorothy. "We were in the fencing club together, weren't we? But . . . I'm sorry. I guess it's been too long, I don't remember your name."

"It started with a 't,' I think," said Relena. "Tro . . ."

"Triton," he told them, offering his hand. "Triton Bloom."

For a moment, he studied their faces, noting the uncertainty there. They must have known the name didn't sound right, but he was confident they wouldn't argue. "Oh, that's right," Relena said and took his hand, and Dorothy nodded in agreement.

"How's life at Ohtori treating you so far, Triton?" she said, flicking her long platinum blond hair over her shoulder and leaning over him. Shifting a little as other students chastised the girls for blocking the aisle. "Finding everything all right?"

"Pretty much."

"Yeah? What do you think of these outrageous uniforms?" With a lecherous grin, Dorothy leaned even closer, her hand resting next to his on the desk, allowing him a nice view of her cleavage. Their uniforms couldn't have been more different from the shin-length skirts and conservative blouses of St. Gabriels Academy. With short puffy sleeves and pastel colors, they certainly made the two girls look more feminine than they had ever appeared at their old school. And with their bodies, there was nothing to complain about.

However, their distaste for the costumes was apparent. Trowa couldn't help an amused snort. "Typical guy response," Dorothy said with a wave of dismissal, but she was smiling as well.

"It's been almost three months and she's still sore about it," Relena told Trowa. A disapproving look came over the other girl's face.

"And with good reason." Dorothy turned and pleaded her case to Trowa. "Last year, when we represented our class in the student council, they gave us these beautiful white pantsuits to wear."

"And this year?" Trowa asked.

"We got kicked out."

"That's not true," Relena corrected, and then Dorothy acquiesced with a guilty smile. "Slanderer. I declined because I felt I needed more time for my studies and Dorothy _claims_ she didn't like the Machiavellian politics—though _I_ thought they were right up her alley." Turning to the other girl, she put her hands on her hips. "Why won't you just admit it was for personal reasons?"

"What reasons?" said Trowa.

Relena rolled her eyes. "Juri Arisugawa."

"Ah." Trowa nodded to himself. That sounded like the Dorothy he remembered. "No luck, huh?"

"It's like I don't even exist." Dorothy let out a long, forlorn, and utterly melodramatic sigh. He had heard that particular sound many times before, in the chatter after fencing practice. She always seemed to pick the coldest target she could—Heero one week, Une the next—always setting herself up for disappointment. He had begun to think that was the whole point. "She said this uniform makes me look like a doll," she said wistfully, though apparently it was an insult. "And here I thought we had such chemistry on the fencing strip. Maybe she really does like boys."

"Anyway," Relena said, disregarding her friend, "would you like to have lunch with us?"

"Yes, you must," Dorothy joined in, forgetting about her crush. "We have so much to catch up on. You can tell us what's being happening back home. And besides, you seem to remember us just fine, but we need a chance to get reacquainted with _you_. It's only fair."

That prospect made him incredibly nervous, but he hid it from them with an over-compensating smile. "Do I have a choice?"

Relena matched his smile. "Not really."

"And then I'm taking you to the fencing club meeting after class," Dorothy said. The instructor had arrived and was trying to get everyone settled. "Quatre will be there. I'm _sure_ you remember _him_. It will be fun. Just like old times."

"I'm looking forward to it," he said, but doubted the two girls heard him as they were already sitting back down in their seats. It was just as well.

* * *

It was dark in the music room. The bright sunlight came down through high windows to warm the floor in geometric bars.

But, eyes closed as he played the familiar piece, Quatre could almost imagine the room where he had often practiced at his old school. The great windows thrown open after a summer rain to let in the radiance of sunlight hitting vapor, the smell of wet grass and flowers bent under the onslaught. His hands knew the way as they swept up and down, _doucement_: tenderly. His fingers felt out the proper chords by rote. But it didn't seem quite right as he played it. It didn't make sense.

Of course, it was only the harmony, missing its other half, the other set of hands that were responsible for completing the song. To compensate in the meantime, on a playful whim, he tried elaborating on his part, running his long, trained fingers fiercely and fluidly over the ivory in a jazzy variation on the theme. The thrill of instant and personal creation made his skin tingle with goosebumps. But it could not change the melancholy inherent in the song. It did nothing to ease the nameless longing it created in his heart, and, if anything, only made it worse.

He brought the piece to an abrupt end; it suddenly seemed to take too much effort to finish it properly.

And as the vibrations died away under his hovering hands, he realized there were no rain clouds in the sky, and that there was another person in the room with him.

He looked up to see Miki had entered, and was staring at him in surprise. "Don't stop on my account," the seventh-grader said softly. "That was beautiful. Sad, for a day like this, but beautiful."

"I'm afraid I don't have much of an appetite for playing today," Quatre admitted with a sigh as he stood. He flashed the boy a smile, but there was a forced quality to it. "I just hope my mood isn't contagious. Then again, this really isn't my forte, and I'm willing to bet prodigies are immune to superstitions like that. You wanted to play, I take it?"

"Oh, right." Miki didn't know quite what to say as he moved toward the piano. He leafed through the sheet music that sat there already while Quatre picked up his violin on the round table and began to play Miki's song: "The Sunlit Garden." Slowly at first, as though encouraging and even daring Miki to play with him. He played brightly, but it was a false brightness, as though Quatre believed he could change his mood, like a chameleon changes its skin, to match the tone of the music. And Miki hesitated for a few long minutes, feeling tugged by indecision, before he could stand it no longer—before he could postpone what he had come for no longer.

As he shut the lid over the keyboard, Quatre let his instrument drop from his shoulder. "What's wrong?" he began when he saw the pained expression on the other boy's face.

In response, Miki drew a small envelope from his pocket and held it out between them, seal-side up. "This came to the student council's box. Touga said I should give it to you, said it's your turn. . . ." But Quatre knew what it was before he could say anything, and it filled him with a sense of foreboding. The seventh-grader also seemed troubled as he confirmed, "From End of the World."

Quatre snatched it from him, anger suddenly flaring up inside him. He tore the card from it, scanning the short message on it, his lips pressed tight together. "I don't want to do this," he said as he read over it a second time. A third. "I really don't."

"I'm sorry," Miki said, and meant it. It hadn't been easy for him either, when he first found out when he would be dueling. He had known the time would come eventually, but at the same time a part of him had hoped with all he had that it wouldn't. "If it's any consolation," he tried, "I know how you feel. I was reluctant to enter the duel when my time came. But . . ."

"But?" Quatre echoed.

Miki looked down. "In the end, I wanted to. I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but I knew I had to. For a . . . a _je ne sais quoi_. My shining thing."

He knew he wasn't making much sense. He saw the blank expression on Quatre's face as his upperclassman slowly deciphered his meaning. "I don't have anything like that," Quatre said quietly. His gaze dropped to his hand that held the card in a vise grip, to the silver shackle on his ring finger. He shut his eyes. "Not anymore. And furthermore—" He raised his voice again. "—I won't let this school or this End of the World person or people or—or whatever it is get to me and make me think I feel things I don't."

Miki shook his head. "It's not that simple."

"I'll have to refuse," Quatre said with determination, as much to himself as the other. "I don't want to duel. Give it to someone who really wants it. Isn't that enough?" A ragged sigh escaped his lips and he met Miki's sympathetic stare. "Isn't there something I can do?"

Miki hadn't the heart to tell him it was futile.

In the tower, the bells tolled noon.

* * *

It took a little asking around, but he found the student council president, Touga Kiryuu. That elegant young man was sitting by himself in the sun, immersed in an old, worn copy of Catullus as though to mock Quatre. He looked up when he saw the two approaching him, a serene smile on his lips that didn't waver, even at what came next.

Skipping any pretense of greeting, Quatre tossed the card onto the table in front of him, the date and time of his duel in the neat, plain print of an invitation staring up at the president. Bringing up his left hand so that Touga wouldn't miss it, he yanked the ring from his finger and slammed it down with a dull clunk on top of the card. There was a sharp intake of breath as Miki started behind him. The matching rose seals on the ring and card seemed dangerously incongruous with the hasty manner in which they had been discarded.

"What's this?" Touga asked with unfazed calm and even amusement as he tucked a lock of red hair behind his ear.

"I'm resigning," Quatre said. "I don't want anything to do with the student council anymore. You can suspend me if you want, for breaking the rules."

Touga looked at him quizzically. "Don't you think you're being a bit rash?"

"Not at all. I've never been more sure about anything."

"I've heard that before." The president sighed, allowing his smile to drop. "You knew when you chose to join the council that the duels were part of the arrangement. Part of the duties that went along with the honor of wearing the rose seal. Why back out now, just when it's your turn?"

"Because," Quatre said, hearing the words Miki had spoken to him just minutes before echoed in his own voice; "because I didn't actually think my time would come. I only agreed to it with that belief."

Touga lowered his eyes, nodding slowly in contemplation. "You know this complicates things."

"I am aware of that, yes. And I apologize."

Touga snickered at that. Then he looked up again, catching the other's eyes with a gaze so intense for a moment it seemed he was trying to shake Quatre, to test how much he believed in his own supposed convictions.

But, jaw firm, Quatre only stared resolutely back. "You surprise me," Touga said. "With your skill on the fencing strip, your enthusiasm for the bout—you make winning look so effortless, Mr. Winner—I thought you would have jumped on the opportunity to be in a real duel."

"Pardon my cynicism," Quatre said, "but everyone here seems to treat this _real_ duel like a game."

"Isn't everything a game?" Touga countered. "Isn't survival a game? Perhaps it follows that the higher the stakes, the more the competition must remove themselves from the severity of it. To cope." Despite the pretentiousness of his words, his tone lacked passion. Only a statement of fact. "The stakes are extremely high."

"I know. The Rose Bride. Eternity. The power to revolutionize the world."

Touga nodded.

"I don't believe it," Quatre added. "I don't believe those are things that can be traded so lightly. Even if I did, I wouldn't want them. Not that way. I certainly don't want a bride for a trophy, someone I hardly know, with no choice or say in the matter. I didn't sign on for that."

"Then what did you sign on for?"

There was silence on the patio save for the earthy hum of summer as Quatre thought it over. "To make a difference," he finally said. "To represent my class and its interests. I do believe in the idea of revolution. But if I'm to revolutionize anything I will do it my own way. With no help from End of the World."

Touga didn't seem to be paying attention. He picked up the ring from where Quatre had deposited it, turning it over between his fingers, his own ring glinting on his long-boned hand. He leaned forward and placed it on the table in front of Quatre, and the tenth-grader started. "Take it," Touga said. "It was a gift after all."

"I won't duel," Quatre began again, but Touga's nod stopped him.

"Find a second," he offered. "Don't look so surprised, Mr. Winner. I do find your intentions admirable, but someone has to attend this duel: That's the rule. All you have to do is find someone willing to take your place before the allotted time arrives."

"But I don't know anyone," Quatre said hopelessly. Anyone who would take on such a heavy burden for him, at least. Nor could he wish it on anyone. Perhaps, he thought, that was what Miki meant when he had said in the end he had wanted to duel. The alternative wasn't very reassuring. Absently he picked up the ring, its familiar weight materializing the great weight he felt in his heart.

"Relax," said the president as he turned back to his poems. "You have a whole week."

* * *

In the silence of the student council building, an old elevator rattled slowly through the bright sunlight, carrying shadowy figures to the top floor.

_If it cannot break its egg's shell, a chick will die without being born.  
We are the chick; the world is our egg. If we do not crack the world's shell, we will die without being born.  
Smash the world's shell—  
For the revolution of the world!_

The scene: a large balcony overlooking the track and field, the dueling forest in the distance. One round table surrounded by ornate chairs sits in the center, on which today rests a magnificently massive arrangement of fragrant Easter lilies. Student council president **Touga** sits at this table, and young genius **Miki** and fencing captain **Juri** join him, the latter keeping a safe, contemplative distance away. The former takes the card that has come attached to the arrangement.

**Juri**: Another message from End of the World?

**Miki**: The next appointed dueling time is eight o'clock in the evening, next Friday. Forecast calls for more sun and blue skies. Light winds are expected out of the southwest, bringing with them a wave of high pressure. A burn-ban might have to be instituted.

**Juri**: And whose turn is it this time?

**Miki**: One transfer student by the name of Quatre Winner, tenth grade. Age sixteen. Blood type—

**Juri** [turning]: Quatre Winner? You mean the Quatre Winner in my club?

**Touga**: Do you know of any others?

The two young men have taken to building a house with florist cards. Giant wreaths of lilies and white carnations and trailing white freesia have been set up on tripods behind them.

**Miki**: With his experience on the strip, he has the potential to return the Rose Bride to the student council.

**Touga**: End of the World seems to have a soft spot for transfer students.

**Miki**: And his name seems auspicious, too.

**Touga** [wistfully]: Too bad he's refused the invitation.

With a flick of distaste, a single bloom falls from **Juri**'s hand.

**Juri**: Refused? [She sneezes.] Is he really such a coward then?

**Touga**: It takes a great deal of courage to keep refusing something you know you deserve.

**Juri**: Hmph. It takes more courage to face your fears than to run away from them.

The arrangement seems to have taken a liking to **Touga** so that he must constantly brush the blooms away from his face, distracting him from his card house. The air around the three is beginning to smell so sweet it is beginning to smell rancid.

**Touga**: And how would you describe your relationship with Mr. Winner, Miss Captain? Would you care to know what he thinks of your fencing?

**Miki**'s stopwatch clicks.

**Miki** [reading from a card]: 'Juri Arisugawa is overbearing on the strip, allows verbal threats and physical contact and other inappropriate behaviors that mar the respectability of fencing and the reputation of this school.' That's what I heard him telling the eighth-grade girls, anyway.

**Juri**: Why should I [sneeze] care what he thinks? [Sneeze.] That anal-retentive [sneeze] goody two-shoes—

**Miki** leans forward in interest, florist card in his raised hand.

**Miki**: The truth comes out!

**Juri** [defensively]: I'm not jealous or any—[sneeze]—thing! All I'm saying is he makes too much of a fuss over propriety. It's not healthy.

**Touga**: Ah, yes. Propriety.

**Touga** has plucked the offending bloom and peeled its petals back like a banana. The naked sex organs tremble in the open air. **Juri** sneezes again.

**Touga**: Someone must be talking about you, Juri.

**Juri** [sniffling]: It's just the air pressure.

**Touga**: Well, it will all turn out in the end. He knows he has a week to choose a second.

**Miki** [to himself]: The letters are only one-way. There's no way End of the World can tell whether he duels himself or someone takes his place. Speaking of which, what about that girl I saw you bouting with yesterday, Juri?

**Touga**: The question is, will he? What makes him think he's any different from the rest of the duelists? Just because he still considers himself a transfer student. A representative.

**Juri**: Dorothy Catalonia. She's good, but she took herself out of the running last semester.

**Touga**: Then again, how many times have we heard duelists attempt to deny their responsibilities? Try to lose on purpose, get it over with quickly. Right, Miki?

**Miki**: I worry about him. He's not the kind to treat something like this lightly. Can't say I blame him. You know, Juri, you're in his class.

**Touga**: In the end, they always come up with some excuse for going through with it. Their motives change, and they realize that maybe what they thought wasn't so important to them really is worth fighting to keep. Some might call it destiny, but in reality it takes much more strength of character than that. It takes a noble, a beautiful spirit. To revolutionize the world.

**Juri**: Are you saying you want me to keep an eye on him, Miki?

**Miki**: I want you to help him out.

**Juri**: _Me?_

**Touga**: That's what I find most alluring.

**Juri** [to **Miki**, sardonically]: He's not talking about Quatre anymore, is he?

On the table stands a mansion made of florist cards. It is a U-shaped building with a delicate tower and a little archway between the two parallel halls. Gently **Miki** lowers the last card into place, but before he can set it down, the mansion crumbles under his hand.

* * *

From his angle, the school looked like some exotic city hanging in the sky. Gothic arches, Roman colonnades, a triangular Bridge of Sighs and Baroque ovals and scrolls were like scenes on postcards. Everywhere hard black-and-white lines. Soaring lines. A fantastical Venice all squashed together, all monochrome. Complete with the exposed bones of giant ancient gondolas lining the entrance. An elephant graveyard of mankind's greatest architectural achievement, suspended in that endless blue summer sky.

The coach gave Trowa the okay and he relaxed, letting his legs fall forward to the ground and pushing himself back up right. The handstand was the very last task in the seemingly endless list of physical ability assessment he had to suffer as a new student. The plus side: It allowed him the perfect opportunity to disappear after classes. He nodded as the coach read him his results. No surprise there. Physical education had always been one of his strong suits, especially gymnastics.

Wakaba spotted him and called his name. No, not his name, he remembered, Triton's. "Wow, you look so different," was the first thing she said to him, and he found himself feeling more than a little self-conscious as she took in the image of him in shorts and a T-shirt. She was dressed down herself and carried a duffel bag over her shoulder. "Are you in track?"

"No," he told her.

"Oh. Too bad." He could have guessed it by the other girls warming up on the grass, but she told him she was anyway. Then she gave him a weird look. "You know, someone's looking for you."

"Yeah? Tall, blond girl? Strange eyebrows?"

"Yeah." She seemed proud to be trading such sensitive information with him. "Said she was going to take you to fencing club to show you off. Seemed awfully bossy if you ask me."

"Which way did she go?"

"Last I saw, towards the art studio."

Trowa smiled. He liked this girl. "Thanks for the heads up," he said, earning him a conspiring wink. "Any time."

* * *

The fencing club had decided to move back inside today, the novelty of the summer heat beginning to wear. The slight give of the pad beneath Quatre's feet gave the bout a familiar feel, recalling so many hours of practice in a gymnasium that always had a certain gymnasium smell to it. It was his turf. And the gangly young man standing before him, no doubt from the middle school, knew it. His en garde stance lacked a certain confidence.

This would be over in no time.

The boy lunged. Quatre parried, touched on a riposte. One down.

The next time, Quatre took the offensive. The other boy blocked his first attack, but missed his second by a centimeter. Two down.

On the next match, Quatre momentarily toyed with the idea of letting his opponent touch him once or twice, just so his efforts were not a total loss. He could sense the crowd's expectant eyes on him, however, and a smirk came to his lips beneath the mask. As he parried, he slid his own blade along the length of the other, feeling his way down his opponent's sword like his foil was an extension of his own nerves. With the slightest twitch of his wrist, he executed a croise. The onlookers applauded the grace of the move, the line of his body that showcased the finesse with which he had pulled it off.

Touché. Three down. It was just too easy.

The last two touches came all too soon, and the boys shook hands, the younger stumbling over his congratulations. Quatre imagined him to be a bright shade of red beneath his mask.

Pulling off his own and taking in a deep breath, he made his way to the benches lining the wall where Juri sat, presiding like a king over the games of knights and jesters. She smiled at him as though she were sharing in his victory. And Quatre would find no word disapproving his absolute win from her direction. No one to say he was being unnecessarily cruel anywhere in the gym. A quick glance around would be all it took to see the admiration bordering on longing on their visitor's faces.

Quatre did not glance around, however. Instead he opened his water bottle, and closed his eyes as he tipped his head back and took a long, refreshing drink. "How did your exam go?" Juri asked him.

He wiped a bit of water from the corner of his mouth, smiling. "I'm here, aren't I?"

At that the doors had opened between them, and he could all but feel Juri relaxing beside him on the bench with the parry of wit. "I heard you've turned down the invitation to duel," she said in a more familiar register. "I half expected you'd be off studying or moping, or anything else right now. You know, it being so soon after . . ."

He shrugged. "Why should I? My refusal has nothing to do with my love for fencing."

"That's true, I suppose," she admitted, thinking. "It's too bad, though. You would have been excellent."

"Too bad for whom? Me or the student council?" The answer was obvious to both, and his chuckle was almost a wince as he leaned back. "Are you also going to try convincing me I've made the wrong decision? Because Touga already tried."

"He obviously didn't try hard enough."

"I'm merely a class representative," Quatre reminded her quietly. "I don't deserve this responsibility. No, I suppose I don't really want to quit after all, but I do have enough knowledge of the limits of this place by now to know I can't be forced into participating. I'm not going to be bullied into thinking I owe this End of the World anything, either."

"You still owe me a solo."

Quatre glanced lazily over at the fencing captain out of the corner of his eye. He had promised to play her a piece on his violin, after she dared him to prove his talk hadn't been mere bragging.

She brightened. "But I'd settle for a match instead, if that's what you'd prefer."

"No thanks. I feel sore just thinking about it."

"_I_ would like to challenge you. If I may."

Quatre looked up in surprise at the new voice. Standing before him was the tall, lean shape of a young man about his age in a white fencing jacket, foil in hand. He had a humble, though confident, posture that was strangely familiar—like his voice. Yet Quatre was sure that he had never seen nor fought the young man before. There were always new additions to the club, he told himself. Quatre only regretted he couldn't see his opponent's face: The young man was already wearing his mask. That was a little odd. It didn't seem polite to hide your face from the one you've just challenged.

"I don't remember seeing you around here," Juri said beside him, the fire of a fight in her eyes. She must have been thinking the same thing. "You're not a member of the club?"

"No," the mysterious young man said. He had a sad, serious voice, Quatre noted. "I just transferred. But I was in my old school's fencing club, and I would like to join. If you think I'm good enough, that is."

She chuckled. "You sound pretty sure of yourself. Maybe you should have asked me to bout—"

"No." Quatre stood abruptly, cutting her off. And also to see if, bringing his face inches from his opponent's, he could incite any emotion in this stoic stranger. But the stranger moved not one muscle. "I accept," Quatre said. "But first, whom, may I ask, will I be fighting?"

"You can call me Triton Bloom," his opponent said.

"What?" Quatre blinked. "Bloom?" He knew he had heard that name before. If only he could hear the bearer's voice more clearly. . . .

"It's a common name," said the other in dismissal. They made their way to the center strip which Miki and his opponent had just abandoned. "Winner, on the other hand, is not."

Quatre smiled. "So you've heard of me? Then you must know I don't go easy on anyone, even beginners."

"I wouldn't expect you to."

"We'll play to five touches," Quatre said, and when there was no argument added quietly, "Good luck," as he lowered his facemask.

"May the best man win," said Triton.

They saluted and assumed their positions, and Quatre found himself breathing a little heavier than usual. No doubt it was because he did not yet know what to expect from the stranger, whose en garde stance exuded power. Take your time, he told himself. Feel him out.

Then he lunged.

Triton Bloom parried easily and attacked, taking the place of aggressor immediately. Quatre was forced to make a quick retreat to defend himself. He noted the other boy's physical strength, the force with which he swung his sword, his confidence bordering on over-confidence. Perhaps it could be used against him.

He wasn't paying much attention to his outside line. With a semicircular parry, Quatre attacked him there, under the arm. Noting the touch, Triton backed away, back to the en garde line. His sportsmanship was commendable, Quatre thought, but it took more than a good attitude to stay in the game.

Triton must have known that. Quatre could all but see the wheels turning in his head as Triton waited for him to make the first move. Or perhaps the light batting of his blade against Quatre's was to distract him, like a magician's waving hand does from the real trick. Suddenly he aimed for far outside, and like a fool Quatre went for it—cursing himself as he did so—blocking the attack but leaving himself open when Triton charged. Quatre sidestepped as he parried, and Triton stumbled past him, receiving a poke in the ribs from the button of Quatre's foil as the fair boy turned.

"You're pretty strong," Quatre observed, meaning it as a compliment and warning both. Triton maneuvered the blade quickly, but too much reliance on physical strength seemed to be affecting his point control. "But you move your arms too much. Who was your teacher?"

Triton didn't flatter him with a response. He merely got up and back into position, ready for more.

After a breath, Quatre attacked once again. But this time, when Triton counterattacked, he scored a high touch. Quatre passed it off as luck—his recklessness was bound to produce results sooner or later.

But then, again, same spot. It couldn't have been mere luck. He was leaving holes in his guard, Quatre realized. This Triton boy was a fast thinker. It was hard to tell what he was thinking through the blank mask, and even his body kept its poker face.

Twice more they went back to their positions, and twice more Triton scored a touch. It didn't matter what Quatre did, it seemed, Triton found some way through his attacks. Each time he seemed more at ease on the strip, more confident with his blade, and each time the bout stretched longer. Quatre managed to score one more, but it didn't seem to matter. With four touches against him, he found himself being pressed back toward the warning line.

Desperate, he waited for the right moment and feigned outside, planning to catch Triton on the inside line when he went for the bait. It was his signature trick, and it almost always fooled his opponent.

But he was shocked to find Triton had deflected his move before he even delivered it, completely ignoring his feint. Almost as if he knew what Quatre was going to do next—as if he could read his mind. It threw him off. His next attack was sloppy, and as Triton parried and their foils entwined, an appropriately placed flick of Triton's blade sent Quatre's sliding across the floor.

The sound of the thin metal rattling in the suddenly silent room froze him. Then he felt the button point of Triton's foil poking his sternum. That made five.

"Not bad," he murmured between breaths. His pulse was racing. "Not bad at all. Congratulations. I don't think there's any reason the club wouldn't want you now."

There was no response. His opponent didn't move, and he dared not either. The pressure increased on his chest. The foil arched under the stress, and Quatre vaguely wondered if it would snap first or pierce his heart despite the button and the padding between them. He wondered if the vibrations of his heartbeat could be felt through the handle, giving him away to his adversary. It was awkward.

Even worse: humiliating. Quatre had already been defeated. Since he had arrived at Ohtori, there had been countless opponents whose skills matched and even outmatched his own, but no other defeat riled him like this one. No other defeat felt so absolute and . . . deserved. "How did you do it?"

"It wasn't that hard," the other answered flatly. He didn't seem affected by the exercise at all. "It helped that you used the same feint to the outside line. I was counting on that, I must admit."

Quatre started. The same . . . "How do you know about that?"

Triton lowered his blade finally. "You'd be surprised how much you can tell about a person by their behavior on the strip," he said. Why did those words sound so familiar? "Their personalities. Their doubts. You, for instance, still can't bear to lose, no matter how well you take your defeats on the outside. So you trick your opponent just when he starts on the right path."

"So what? It's not against the rules—"

"It's the way of war. _C'est la guerre_—that's what you tell them. Isn't that right, Quatre?"

Quatre started. The way the Bloom boy said his name—it went to his knees as though it had been whispered lustily in his ear, it was so jarringly intimate. "I—" he began, but didn't know what to say. Triton had hit it dead on, a target Quatre had never given more than a passing thought. How could it be this stranger knew so much about him and acted so familiar, as if they'd known each other longer than these past five or so minutes? How could he _dare_act so familiar?

But a stronger suspicion nagged at Quatre, though it went against everything he thought possible.

"Take off your mask."

For a moment, Triton seemed to hesitate. But only a moment, and then he reached up to undo his mask. Slipping his fingers under the bib, he pulled it off in one fluid motion—

And Quatre felt the breath catch in his throat.


	3. 

**Author's note:** This chapter contains a mixture of third-person and first-person (Trowa) voice.

* * *

Long auburn bangs fell down over the young man's downcast eyes toward joyless lips. Long lashes threw shadows on his high cheekbones. And when he looked up and met Quatre's eyes through the mesh of his mask, there could be no question as to his identity. "Trowa."

"I told you," the other said, his voice flat and emotionless, "call me Triton Bloom."

Quatre's vision swam for a moment as the blood pounded violently in his veins. "'Triton Bloom'?" he found himself all but yelling. He heard his own voice tinged with anger barely restrained. A million shapeless questions ran through his mind. He yanked off his own mask. "What are you talking about? Trowa, what are you _doing_ here?"

"I've finally beaten you," was the other's response.

But what does that have to do with anything? Quatre thought. What was he supposed to say? Trowa gave him no clue. He simply stared at Quatre with those mournful olive green eyes, the one partly hidden beneath his hair. Lips pulled into a straight line with only the hint of a great tension loosening from them.

Now Quatre heard the muttering around them. The other fencers had stopped their duels and were staring at the showdown of silent stares between the two young men, shocked by Quatre's uncharacteristic outburst, noting the lack of resolution in the bout. The girls who had come to watch began to talk, whispering loudly to one another. Quatre could guess about what. It was staring him in the face.

Then Trowa turned, eyes downcast.

"Wait!" Quatre yelled, moving to follow him—feeling as though he had failed somehow, again—but a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Incredible," Juri said, breathless. Her hand shook on his arm, giving her away where her only faintly intrigued smile did not. "You know that guy?" she asked Quatre, her eyes staring past him.

"Yeah." Quatre turned again, looking for Trowa. But he had disappeared into the crowd.

Shrugging the captain off, a wave of desperation rising in him, Quatre headed toward the doors. The onlookers parted easily for him, watching him go.

Trowa couldn't have just vanished, Quatre thought, though he felt nagged by the self-doubt of one who thinks he has just seen a ghost. It was like a dream—like a nightmare in which untruths defy any attempt you make at logic. Or where the thing you want is constantly moved just out of reach, and if you look right at it, it's swallowed up by the darkness. It didn't seem real. If not for the others who had been staring in their direction all the while, watching them duel, or for Juri's comment, Quatre might have thought he had imagined the whole thing.

In his carelessness, he collided with Dorothy as she was rounding the corner of the gym.

"Quatre!" She grabbed hold of him to keep them both on their feet. "You'll never guess who I ran into today! I'll give you a hint: He used to be in our old school's fencing club. I was going to bring him by to show you this afternoon, but I lost him after class—"

"Did you see him? Just now?" Quatre asked her, trying to see over her shoulder.

But she seemed oblivious to his efforts. "Who? Triton?"

"Dorothy," he sighed, closing his eyes in resignation.

"What?" she said. "Did I miss something?" And Quatre hadn't the heart to tell her just how right she was.

* * *

•

* * *

Victory looked certain this time. Foils clinked and sneakers squeaked on the hardwood floor in fierce rhythm. He had Quatre on the defensive, pushing him back towards the warning line.

They were even now: One touch would do it. And Quatre was only parrying. But Trowa's suspicions were raised. He was being toyed with, an instinctual part of his mind warned him; Quatre was taking him for a ride, hoping he in turn would perhaps walk onto the blade. He watched his friend's moves more closely, but the doubt was already building up. When Quatre finally decided to riposte, going for the outside line, Trowa was ready to block it. He moved to parry—

And felt the tip of the foil in his ribs.

Game over.

* * *

Quatre always got what he wanted.

He wasn't a Winner for nothing. Every time we entered a bout together, I lost. And as much time as I spent trying to figure out what I had done wrong, I inevitably returned to the same conclusion:

He was simply better than me.

I envied him for it.

But I admired him for it as well. It was a comfort to me—an immutable constant in a life I found unstable in comparison. I'm sure it never started out that way, but it became so our friendship seemed dependent on this predictability—this trust that through everything we would remain exactly the same, our respective strengths and weaknesses intact. I remember worrying that perhaps if I won, he would stop liking me. But it was pointless to worry: That never happened. For all that I was frustrated by my own shortfalls in that one area in which I felt we were most equal, most at liberty to show our feelings through the channel of swordplay, I had to admit the truth:

I liked it when he beat me.

* * *

A single set of hands rang out a round of applause in the quiet gym, causing the two to straighten and pull apart. "I guess you win again," Trowa said as he reached up to undo his mask.

No handshake was necessary between them. "You almost had me. I thought you'd know better by now." Quatre chuckled, mask coming to a rest on his hip. Those were grave words to be tossed about with such carelessness. They were true, however, and whether because of or despite that fact, Trowa felt a wave of resentment rise up in him.

But only for a moment. Quatre shrugged, smiled, and all was well again. "Well, _c'est la guerre._"

"Well played," said the club's captain as he approached them—Nichol, a tall, athletic senior with dark, curly hair and a dark look to match. It was from him that Trowa resolved to bury his injury. The captain had a way of looking at him like he could read Trowa's thoughts, his insecurities. The harshest criticism he reserved just for Trowa, always blunt and precise, knowing just what to say to provoke his sense of shame. And spur him on to try harder.

That was the last thing Trowa wanted now, another pang to add to this undesired smart he felt over his defeat. "Okay, let's pack it up," the captain said, "so we can get out of here."

Then: "A word, Barton?"

Of course, Trowa thought, what made him think he would escape this time—especially after being defeated by the same old feint? Quatre left him to pack his equipment, and the captain waited until he was out of earshot to tell Trowa, "I really thought you had it this time. Barton, I'm beginning to think you _want_ to lose to him."

He was saved from having to respond by the gym door opening with a sharp creak. Heels clicked on the wood floor, signaling the presence of student body president Une. Nichol snapped to attention immediately, forgetting Trowa was even there; and Trowa mentally breathed a sigh of relief as the captain greeted her with an all too formal: "Afternoon, President Une."

The president smiled. "Afternoon, Captain Nichol. Feels like evening, though, doesn't it?" She was trying to be amiable, he could tell, but the walls she put up around herself only made her seem awkward.

"Uh, yeah, I guess it does." Nichol was no different, sadly. "Can I do something for you?"

"Actually, I came to discuss the club's schedule for next month."

"Sure."

"You wanted a word?" Trowa interrupted, and, as he had hoped, the captain waved him away with a distracted: "Next time."

Trowa smiled to himself as he joined Quatre at the bench. The look that passed between them—a knowing grin, a warm sideways glance (he couldn't be sure if it was about their two upperclassmen, but he hoped not)—pushed the sting of defeat from his mind as it always did. Quatre cleared his throat as he reached for his sweatshirt and their shoulders brushed as casually as though by accident, to reassure him it was nothing personal. At the same time, the effect of that minute touch was like a draught of wine, a hot pad on aching muscles, making his skin tingle, his mind drowsy—

Did he know what effect he had on Trowa? No doubt he did. And yet sometimes Trowa did doubt it.

They left without saying a word to each other, the only speech when Quatre waved over his shoulder to Nichol: "See you Monday, Cap'n."

Outside, the sky was dark although it was only four, but the rain had stopped momentarily. The smell of it permeated everything—the conglomerate walkway, the fallen leaves whose mildew scent had begun to fade with the showers. Everything except Quatre, who smelled like fabric softener as he closed the distance between them, and asked, as he was wont to do whenever he invited himself over: "You doing anything tonight?"

* * *

"Today we will be looking at the staked echinoderms: crinoids, cystoids and blastoids." There was sporadic laughter over the last name, mostly over the particular relish the professor paid to it. "They were most common during the Paleozoic and only the crinoids have survived to present. Unlike other echinoderms, they had an anchor system and a stem attaching the calyx, where all the internal organs were located, to the sea floor. I want you to pay particular attention to the shape and plates of the calyx when you look at the specimens under the microscope because that's how we tell the types apart. And, yes, Mr. Maxwell, this will be on the final."

There was a rustling among the students as they prepared to divide into groups, already picking out their lab partners from across the room. Dr. S had to raise his voice: "Before you do that, however, I'll be passing back your tests." And he walked down the aisles as he called their names.

He delivered Quatre's, and immediately Trowa heard the murmur of feminine voices as they congratulated him on his A-. Then there was silence again as the professor announced: "Mr. Barton! Congratulations. Perfect score."

Duo was next, and with a glance at his own paper he groaned. "I hate you," he joked, leaning towards Trowa with a lopsided grin. He looked over at Quatre, who turned, however briefly, in his seat to whisper his congratulations to Trowa as Heero's perfect score was also announced.

Trowa ended up partnered with Duo and Hilde for the assignment, as usual, which certainly made the class period more interesting. Those two spent most of the time debating the most inane things, cajoling their neighbors Heero and Wufei to weigh in on the finer points, only bending over their worksheets whenever Dr. S made the rounds past their station. "I kind of like clowns, actually," Hilde said at one point, with perfect straight-faced conviction, as she adjusted the microscope. "Seriously. I think they're hot."

From across the station, Heero stopped what he was doing and stared at her, and seeing the look of horror on his face Trowa burst into laughter. Trying to hide it from the professor, his body shook silently, and Duo couldn't help joining him, asking, "Dude, are you okay?" It wasn't often anyone got a laugh out of Trowa Barton, and when someone did, it was almost without exception Heero and for something no one else seemed to find the humor in.

Clearing his throat, Trowa calmed down, though his smile stubbornly refused to go away as he bent his head to work on his specimen drawing. He glanced up and his gaze locked with Quatre's, who was watching him from across the room. He smiled in amusement—a look which made Trowa's heart pause in his chest—and for a moment, for just one split second, it seemed as though no one else existed in Quatre's world. For a moment, it seemed that Quatre had entirely forgotten about his lab partners, two cute girls who happened to be lucky enough to win him that day.

They wouldn't let him ignore them for long, however, as they pulled on his sleeve and asked him if he was listening, or what was the answer to number six. And he had no choice but to turn back, joining in their pointless chatter and enduring their fussiness and promiscuous giggling. Such was the responsibility that came with being the most desired boy in the eighth grade.

* * *

I often wondered why he was with me. I don't mean as a friend. That was merely a product of our parents' acquaintance.

I'm not sure how it ever changed into something more. Perhaps it was the first time he kissed me and I realized it just felt right and natural to want him that way—some time in the distant, hazy past. Looking back, it felt as though it had been that way forever between us. And yet it was also so fragile, what we had. I wonder if we knew that then.

I didn't deserve his affection, I was always being reminded. All I had to do was look around. He could have had anyone in the school. Girls flocked to him like butterflies to the most perfect flower—girls who had everything: wealth and status, charm, beauty, an endless flow of enthusiasm. They sent him letters, confessions of undying devotion, and expensive presents, asked him for help in class just to have his undivided attention for a few precious seconds—all the silly little things girls do when they think they're in love.

Not that Quatre minded. He encouraged them, whether he knew it or not, because he had a certain _savoir-faire_ that drove them wild.

Couldn't he see how it tortured me? Would it have killed him to tell them the truth?

But that's just the thing. You can't really believe everything someone says, no matter how well you think you know him.

I wanted him to know just how much it was killing me to see him with them. No—to see him _enjoying_ being with them. I don't think I quite explained it well enough, though. He didn't enjoy it, he said. He was just as tortured as I was. But how could I believe it with the evidence so clearly stacked against him? "I was only being polite." Of course he was. He didn't know any other way to be—with anyone other than me.

Except for a clandestine look or a kind word here and there, he would act as though I didn't exist.

Until classes were over and we could be alone somewhere.

It bothered him to think someone might find out about us. For some reason, our relationship got incorporated into his much larger fear of being wrong. He didn't seem to understand that what I resented the most, what hurt me the most, was that fear. In those moments we had to ourselves alone, he not only denied it outright, he had to prove it didn't exist. He'd brush against me so innocently, murmur something about studying for our Latin exam outside together (it was such a perfect day). And I . . .

All I heard was an invitation I couldn't refuse.

_. . . If someone let me go on kissing . . ._

The next thing I would know, I'd be laid out flat on my back on a grassy hill where no one else ever came, helpless.

Like clockwork.

* * *

The scent of grass filled Trowa's nostrils, green and organic. Over it, faint and elusive, something infinitely sweeter. He buried his face in the thick fabric that covered Quatre's shoulder, searching for that something again as his fingers searched for the last button of the other boy's uniform jacket.

"_Mellitos oculos tuos—_" were the words mumbled reverently toward the blue sky. "_Siquis me sinat usque basiare—_" He felt the vibration under his lips. "_Usque ad milia basiem trecenta, nec numquam uidear satur futurus—_"

"Enough of that," Trowa whispered. Pleaded. Demanded. "Can't you say anything original?" He laid the jacket open, found the buttons of Quatre's shirt underneath.

"What do you want me to say?" Quatre stretched lazily, stalling.

Trowa brushed lips over his shoulder in quiet exasperation. "You know."

The fingers tangled in his hair went still for half a second. He recognized the hesitation. How long it seemed before Quatre finally gave in and obliged him. "I love you."

Trowa pulled Quatre's shirt out of his trousers. "And only me." His hand slid beneath the starched cotton, feeling Quatre shiver against him as his fingers played with his navel, moving upwards and taking the shirt with them. The worn paperback fluttered on the grass, discarded.

"Of course," Quatre breathed. "Always."

Trowa looped an arm around his bare waist, pulling them together, and kissed Quatre's ear, his lower lip. The fingers crawling spider-like toward his fly lulled him into forgetfulness.

* * *

He would have done anything I asked him to at times like those.

Idiot.

He'd sit there coyly, tuning his violin—by ear, his eyes closed. A peaceful smile on his lips as he made it moan under those skilled fingers of his. Whispering lyrics that had long ago lost their music in my ear, like the holy words that impregnated the Virgin Mary, penetrating my soul. . . .

Sometimes I had to wonder what he said when he was in the confession booth. If he was really paying attention to mass when he let his hand sit nonchalantly on the pew, touching my thigh. Or if he guarded those secrets, too, behind the same impenetrable, charming smile.

I couldn't stop needing him. I thought I was in control, an independent person, but then so says everyone who was once addicted.

No. No past tense. I am addicted. He knew it and he fed it. Not entirely aware he was doing it, I'm sure.

And I hated him for it.

* * *

"He hates me."

"He doesn't hate you—"

"Yes, he does." Trowa let out a troubled sigh. The shadow of rain running down the dorm room window painted his face with the ghost of tears he would never shed wherever the filtered light touched. "You don't know him. He resents me. He blames me for what happened between him and my mother."

Quatre's eyes were suddenly wide with concern at a conclusion hastily made. "He doesn't—?"

"Of course not. He would never lay a finger on someone else's child. And I only have to see him during break. Still. . . ." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I hate that place. That house. I wish I could come live with you instead."

Of course, Trowa already knew the answer to that, and the hush of the wet wind outside the window only seemed to confirm it.

"What if I'm really his son?"

The thought came so suddenly Quatre was at a loss. "What makes you say that?"

The shock on his face, just shy of disgust, wasn't expected. Was it really that bad to be a Bloom? Trowa lowered his eyes. "I don't know. Me and Cathrine, we . . . Look, just forget I ever mentioned it, okay?"

"But—"

In a second, Trowa's lips covered his. At first just to silence him, to make him drop the subject, but it quickly changed to greed. He stroked Quatre's cheek with one hand, tracing the line of his jaw until Trowa's hand came to rest on the back of his neck. The quiet gasp Quatre made as Trowa slid his tongue into his mouth encouraged him, pulled him in. But when Trowa tried to ease him back on the bed, Quatre started and pushed away.

"This isn't right," he said softly, his words absorbed by the dark room. "Not when you're feeling—"

"Like shit?"

"I should probably go."

"Probably," Trowa agreed.

But Quatre just sat still.

"You're not leaving."

"I guess not."

* * *

The year my mother died, and I went to live with Cathrine, he was there for me. Just as he had been when I lost my father, when we were both too young to truly understand what death was. When I felt numb and hollow inside, I held him as he cried for me. I needed him so much then. More than I ever had before. More than I ever thought I would again.

But each passing month proved me wrong.

* * *

Sheets sticking to their skin, Trowa watched him through heavy-lidded eyes. The echoes of Quatre's warm, ragged breaths next to his ear keeping time with the memory of their rocking, of their rolling, still moving him inside, like the ground after an earthquake, or a day on the water.

Quatre opened his eyes, and that familiar stab of resentment returned. "You're not asleep."

Quatre smiled lazily. "Neither are you."

"I want to make sure you don't disappear on me." Normally Trowa would have kept that thought to himself, but the dark had a way of coaxing it out of him.

The words were all it could coax from him, however. There was no way for Quatre to know what he felt inside just by hearing them. He couldn't see the weight they carried in Trowa's mind. Couldn't feel the pain just the thought of the inevitable return to the normal, everyday routine caused him. Yet he had the audacity to make promises.

"I'm not going anywhere."

* * *

Naturally, just when I needed him most, he did.

* * *

"Finally found you. Trowa Barton."

He turned away from the priceless works of art to see Quatre in his most dashing suit, smiling his bright, gentle smile for Trowa alone. His voice, the way he said his name, his jovial manner, echoed in Trowa's mind as he searched for some adequate reply. "The headmaster has interesting taste in art, doesn't he?"

Quatre laughed. "Yeah, 'interesting' is a good word for it. I hope he didn't pay too much." He glanced up at the painting that hung on the wall between them, some Impressionist scene of nude women bathing in a pond composed practically of slabs of paint, that reeked of slabs of paint. That didn't seem to be the cause of his amusement, however. "So. Where's your date? She must be getting lonely."

The question came out in a rather biting tone, and Trowa matched it. "I don't have one." Quatre raised an eyebrow. "Where's yours?"

Startled, Quatre looked wildly about himself. But he couldn't help his grin as he replied: "I guess I don't have one either. Whatever am I going to do?" His grin transformed into something lopsided and wicked.

No doubt he had received plenty of offers. That thought should have made Trowa feel honored, yet he said: "I thought this kind of thing was right up your alley—"

Laughter from the ballroom, sounding so close to his back, startled him. But those voices soon died away, and even the music seemed dim in the secluded hallway where the two found themselves. "How do you mean?" Quatre asked.

"You know. Hors d'oeuvres. Waltzing. Ass-kissing. Whatever it is you people do."

Quatre snorted in irritation. "'You people'?"

"Aristocrats."

"Ah," said Quatre. "I see. And here I was under the impression the Spring Ball was just an excuse for the students to have some fun. Then again, why would Trowa Barton know anything about having fun?" That cut deep, but Quatre allowed him no time to lick his wound. "I, for one, am bored out of my mind. I would have just stayed at home if it were up to me, and I didn't feel pressured to show up—keep up appearances and all." With a sigh, he leaned back against a decorative table. His stance craved sympathy, but whether he was only being melodramatic Trowa could never tell.

One thing he did know, he didn't want to stay at the ball any longer than he had to, either.

He grabbed Quatre's wrist. Startled—and vaguely self-conscious; Trowa never touched him in public—the other gasped, and Trowa asked him quietly: "What if something urgent came up? They couldn't protest your absence then, would they?"

Quatre grinned. "I thought you'd never ask."

They split up and sneaked out different doors, looking for gaps in the crowds, making their respective excuses to anyone who got in their way, waiting until the girls' backs were turned and the chaperones had moved on to make their final break. Their hearts were racing with the thrill of imagined danger, the possibility of someone noticing their escape and putting two and two together, and confident no one would. When at last they were reunited, and the cool spring air hit them, they allowed themselves a shared laugh, returning to the closeness they had had since childhood that even Heero, mutual confidante though he was, never got to see.

They walked aimlessly around the abandoned grounds, the gibbous moon providing all the light they needed as they spoke of inconsequential things. Not that they needed words. The sound of their footsteps falling next to each other was enough during those stretches when they ran out of things to say, and walked with hands in pockets side by side.

The rhododendrons and azaleas were just beginning to bloom in the South Garden, along with the first Easter lilies, glowing like bones in the moonlight. Their bulbs had been forced to meet the holiday schedule, but they would last all summer long. Quatre plucked off two of the blossoms and put them in their lapel holes, pitching the carnations that had been there into the bushes. The heady, almost too-sweet scent of the lilies made Trowa's head swim as Quatre pulled him down onto the soft lawn behind the rhodies; but any worry he might have had about soiling the suit his guardian had paid for instantly vanished when Quatre kissed him. He must have been waiting on pins and needles all night for an opportunity to do just that.

Some time later, having grown tired of kisses, Quatre lay looking up at the night sky, and Trowa, more concerned with earthly bodies, propped himself up on one elbow over his friend. He couldn't help admiring Quatre Winner as no one else got to see him, disheveled and suit slightly creased—his silk tie looking a little stretched from Trowa's sloppy and ultimately futile efforts to untie it. The lily on his lapel was already a bit squashed. But Quatre didn't care. Its nectar would probably stain his designer suit, but it was like him to welcome it. That was his way of rebelling: just enough to make something real, but not enough to make it look serious.

"Bloom's going to kill me," Trowa murmured as he ran a finger over the sticky, broken petals, thinking of the one he was crushing between them, and the slightly damp grass.

"I'll buy you another suit just like that," said Quatre. His long fingers playing with Trowa's hair was hypnotizing. "I'm pretty sure I know your measurements. I'll just tell Father it's for me. That way neither one will ask any questions." His logic was firm, when it came to covering their tracks. His answer was a smile, and Quatre acknowledged it with one of his own as his gaze briefly went back to Trowa.

And . . . awkwardly. That was unexpected. "What?"

"Nothing. Just . . . I guess you could consider it a present."

And since when did Quatre ever feel the need to give him gifts?

"Trowa," he said with sudden uncertainty, "I think you ought to know. I'm transferring to another school. Starting as soon as the year at St. Gabriels ends. I'm . . . I'm not sure how long I'll be gone."

Trowa sat up like he had been stung. "What? When did this happen?"

"I've known since January—"

"_January?_"

Feeling vulnerable under his friend's scrutinizing look, Quatre pulled himself up. Sitting, he could bow his head and didn't have to meet Trowa's eyes, but Trowa knew him well enough to know what he would have found in his. "I—I didn't know how to tell you," Quatre muttered. "I knew how you'd take it, so I kept putting it off."

"And when did you plan on telling me?" Trowa demanded to know. "The day you left?"

"Of course not," Quatre hissed. His brow furrowed as he pretended to study a blade of grass that clung to his knee. "Look, I know I was wrong to wait so long, but I only did it because I didn't want to hurt you. I knew you'd react this way. I guess I felt, irrationally, that maybe if I didn't say anything, then . . ." He sighed in frustration. "I don't know."

"That you could just run away?"

"When you put it like that, it sounds so cold-hearted."

"And that's it?" Trowa said. "There's nothing you can do about it?"

"You don't understand. It's one of the best prep schools in the world, Trowa. It's not easy to get into—"

"You don't have to go." Quatre shook his head, but Trowa continued, unwilling to believe. "You've been here all your life, you can't be expected to just pack up and leave it all, just like that. Tell him you don't want to go—"

"'Him'?" But Quatre figured it out soon enough. He laughed then, startling Trowa. It was nothing to joke about. "You think my father put me up to this, don't you?" Quatre said gently, sadly. Amused. "It was my idea, Trowa. When I heard about everything Ohtori had to offer, and that there were exchange opportunities . . ."

"Ohtori. . . ."

"It's one of the most exclusive schools around. I had to try. And then to be accepted, I can't just—"

"Yeah." It was Trowa's turn to look away. "You told me already. It's not easy to get into."

"Relena and Dorothy are going too," Quatre said. "And Heero."

Trowa couldn't say he was surprised. When a knife has made a mortal cut, what difference does it make if it's poisoned?

"I know this is all sudden, and that's my fault." Quatre paused, waiting to see if his friend wanted to confirm that for him, but he got nothing. "I should have told you when I was thinking of applying. —But it's too late to change that now. I'm going, and the least you could do is try to be happy for me."

"Why?" Trowa asked him. He felt a smile tug at his lips despite what he was feeling inside. Or perhaps, not despite it. A cruel smile to match the wrong that had been done him, the betrayal. "You want to leave me so you can get a better foot in the door."

Quatre winced. "Don't say it like that."

"It's true, isn't it?"

He waited, knowing the proper response to a statement like that was rebuttal, whether it was truly heartfelt or not. Some verbal reassurance to allow himself room to believe, room to hope. That all this had meant something. That it hadn't been for naught, and he hadn't been just some toy Quatre could put aside when he grew out of it. Quatre knew all too well how important it was to Trowa, to know that this time, he was wrong.

But this time, Quatre did not oblige.

"It's not like it's forever," he snapped. His patience, like a threadbare cloth just before it finally develops a hole, was showing its wear. There was so much more just waiting to break through. Yet Quatre stubbornly refused to say anything more.

Sometime later, having grown tired of the silence, they went back to their separate dorms.

* * *

•

* * *

He wasn't sure where he was anymore. He must have been too lost in thought, in the past, not paying attention to the roads in front of him, and taken a wrong turn on the way back to his dorm building. The scenery looked unfamiliar in the late afternoon sunlight, alien.

There was a low wall that went past these dorms, and he sat down against its sun-warmed face to compose his thoughts. Despite the weather, he felt a chill even in his fencing gear. He pulled his knees up to his chest, resolving to wait a few minutes before trying to find his way back again.

That sinking feeling one sometimes gets of not fitting properly, like a square peg in a round hole—or perhaps, that strong push of resistance that comes just before resignation—was beginning to seep back into him when he heard a new voice.

"It hasn't gotten any easier, has it?"

Trowa looked up. Bending down over him was a dark young woman with a small tender smile, peering at him through glasses with large, sympathetic green eyes. Her voice had a siren-like quality, her posture somehow both seductive and innocent at the same time—and yet neither. Strange how she looked at him—rather, through him, like she knew him so well, like they were connected somehow, yet he had never met nor seen her before. No. "Strange" wasn't a strong enough word.

"Excuse me?" he said.

"I said, it hasn't gotten any easier," she repeated in that silky voice, "has it? Finding your way around?"

He smiled, relieved. "I wasn't paying close enough attention to my surroundings, I guess."

"That happens to me sometimes. And I've been here a lot longer. You'd think I'd know better by now." Tittering at a private joke, she leaned against the wall beside him, imitating his mood as best she could. "My mind just goes chasing off after something and before I know it, I've completely passed where I wanted to be. Sounds crazy, doesn't it?"

To her surprise and his, he chuckled. It must have seemed unusual even to a stranger, because at her quizzical look he explained: "If it is, I must be crazy too. I do that all the time."

She smiled again, and he was reminded strongly of Cathrine. "We're two peas in a pod, then, aren't we? Mr., um . . ."

"Triton Bloom."

"What an interesting name!" she said, her face brightening even more. "It has a hopeful ring to it. Triton Bloom. Do you need help with directions?"

"No," he lied. "I should be fine now, but thanks for offering."

"Of course." Then she begged his pardon with the tilt of her head. "Well. I hope you find what you're looking for, Mr. Bloom."

* * *

**Chapter notes:** A calyx is the part of the echinoderm's body that holds the organs, but it is also the outermost protective leaves of a flower. The name "Utena" means flower calyx.

Catullus #48: "_Mellitos oculos tuos . . ._" This is part of a series of poems about counting kisses and secret love affairs, this one with a homoerotic twist (if you take it as being in the author's voice). It was believed that if a jealous someone knew something concrete about you, such as the exact number of kisses, he could place a curse on you. Guy Lee translates it as such in the Oxford World's Classics edition:

_Your honeyed eyes, Juventius,  
If someone let me go on kissing,  
I'd kiss three hundred thousand times  
Nor never think I'd had enough,  
Not if our osculation's crop  
Were closer-packed than dried corn-ears._


	4. 

"Did you hear? Did you hear? Another student transferred here from St. Gabriels."

"How could I not? They say he's old money: the estranged son of old Mr. Bloom."

"But I heard that family—what's left of it—is a little backward, if you know what I mean."

"But _he_ seems normal enough. And he's so humble—"

"And incredibly handsome."

Quatre looked up from his sheet music, and immediately the chatter around him began to die down to scattered whispers. Gossipers suddenly found better things to do, last minute adjustments to be made to their instruments. Did they think he hadn't heard?

The tenth grade had been buzzing all morning, and it was only more obvious in the music room where the smallest sound carried like a shot. Part of Quatre wanted to speak up in Trowa's defense, to expel these rumors that had him pegged as a Bloom. But that would mean acknowledging that he had heard. It would mean opening the subject to questions about the nature of his relationship to Trowa. They already stared at him when they thought he wasn't looking. Maybe they were already wondering about the two of them, about the reason for their ferocity on the strip yesterday, and he dreaded what conclusions they might draw.

He knew he was partly to blame; his bewilderment after the bout had been too transparent. Why couldn't he have treated it like any other match? Why did he have to take it so personally when he knew everyone was watching?

The instructor signaled the class to silence with a couple taps of his baton; and as he raised it, the class raised their instruments into ready positions.

They only played a few bars before the door creaked open. Quatre didn't need to look to know who it was.

"Triton Bloom," he said before either the instructor or the newcomer could exchange a word. He felt his pulse quicken, but when he glanced up at his old friend out of the corner of his eye, he kept his voice strict. "You're late. Is this any way to start your new school year?"

The instructor ignored him and asked Trowa, "Do you have an excuse?"

"No," Trowa answered quickly. "Sorry."

He took a seat across the aisle from Quatre and started to unpack his flute. The instructor told him, "Try not to let it happen again."

"Yes, sir."

They would have left it at that, but Quatre wasn't ready to let them. He didn't know where the desire to see Trowa punished for such a tiny offense came from, but he stood before he quite knew what he was doing and said coolly, "Sir, don't you think it would be wise to see where Mr. Bloom's skills stand, seeing as this is his first day?"

He was aware of Trowa's eyes on him, and with that satisfaction smiled and cocked his head. "Besides," Quatre added with a sideways glance, "he's already interrupted our lesson. I think it's only fair to let him have his full moment in the spotlight."

His request couldn't be ignored. Standing one-clad white figure against the tiers of blue-green, his authority here rivaled the instructor's, added to that the great respect the other students had for his talents. "If that's what you want," Trowa said and dutifully stood.

The instructor nodded. "What do you suggest, Mr. Winner?"

"An allegro from Arne's Trio Sonata in B minor."

The instructor raised an eyebrow, but said, "Interesting choice. But do you have the music, Mr. Bloom?"

"That's no problem," Quatre said for him as he took his seat. "He should have it memorized."

He looked over at Trowa, who met his gaze. If his old friend resented being put on the spot, he didn't show it. His only reaction was slight curiosity at the piece Quatre had picked for him, and Quatre knew why. "Whenever you're ready," said the instructor.

Taking a slow breath, Trowa brought the flute to his lips and closed his eyes. He began to play, falling into a quick tempo as the melody rose and fell, his tone rich and natural as a songbird's, attacking the difficult trills with confidence and ease. Quatre watched him closely as he played, finding himself mesmerized by the movement of Trowa's lips and his steady fingers as he enjoyed the familiarity of the piece. They had played it together enough times before, the flute and violin echoing each other as their twin melodies danced up and down the scale together, entwined together, in a friendly competition of harmony.

Quatre couldn't help playing his own part in his head, remembering how it had felt to create the music together. And when Trowa brought the piece to a close, he was reluctant to let go of that feeling—until he heard the instructor's applause, and his classmates murmur their approval.

As Trowa sat, he exchanged a small smile with Quatre, looking for his approval perhaps, a trace of satisfaction in the way his green eyes now sparkled.

But then the instructor quipped, "Maybe you should be up here teaching the class, Mr. Bloom," and Quatre felt his own smile grow stale.

Their schedules were the same that whole morning. After music was physical education, and it was baseball season. The class was divided into two teams, white jerseys against blue, and the two wound up on opposing sides. The middle school girls stopped to watch on their way back from the track, cheering the boys on and giggling amongst themselves, admiring their upperclassmen in baseball knickers. The chain link fence around the diamond rattled as they pressed close.

From his position behind home plate, Quatre was at an advantageous spot to hear them between plays. Now the blue jerseys already had one man on second—looking like he was tempted to steal—and one out. The pitch: fast and a little too high. But the batter swung anyway. The ball landed with a smack in Quatre's glove, and the coach called the third strike.

When the boy walked back to his teammates, Quatre took a moment to readjust his catcher's mask. As he did so, he saw Trowa standing next to the fence, exchanging a few words with two girls who stood apart from the rest. He recognized one as Utena Tenjou.

Quatre felt a pang of jealousy: Trowa had already made female acquaintances—outside their class, no less—in less than three days' time. He hardly heard those who congratulated his strikeout, but the good lucks those two wished Trowa reached his ears as clearly as if shouted through a megaphone.

"Hit it out of the park, Triton!" said the other girl with the short, bouncy ponytail as his old friend stepped up to the plate, and the cry was taken up by others, mingling with the boos and shouts for Quatre and the pitcher to strike him out.

The first pitch was another high fast ball—Trowa didn't even bother swinging. Quatre signaled to the pitcher to throw him a slider, which the other boy did remarkably well, so that it dropped out just as it passed over the plate.

But Trowa's bat connected with it squarely. It got under the ball, sent it soaring out toward right field. Trowa took off for first base, and the girls behind the fence cheered. It looked at first like it was going to be a home run, but the ball dropped and rolled into the corner, and the right fielder ran toward it. He was nowhere near as fast as Trowa.

"Come on, come on," Quatre muttered under his breath, urging on his teammate even as one run was made, but his eyes were watching Trowa as he rounded second, making a mental tally of all the ways in just one year he had changed. Trowa paused at third to find the ball, and seeing the right fielder fumble as he picked it up, decided to try and beat it back home. Trowa came in standing up, the ball a full two seconds behind him, and there was a rare wide grin on his face as he wiped the dust out of his eye to see his teammates' ecstatic expressions. They whooped and patted him on the back as he joined them. It wasn't the first time they had acknowledged him that day, but it certainly seemed to cement Trowa in their favor.

After that, he was foremost in the girls' favor as well. Though they cheered when Quatre hit a line drive, they were even louder when Trowa caught it after one bounce and made a double play. And when he stole second after his next time at bat. Quatre's teammates didn't mind—it was only class time they were spending—and even complimented Trowa on a game well played, both on their way off the field and into the locker room. They grilled him about the sports programs at St. Gabriels, what he played and which professional teams he favored.

Quatre allowed him plenty of room to enjoy his novelty. He didn't begrudge his old friend the attention; he had been in the same position enough times not to envy him that.

And yet he still felt jealous.

They were staring a new play in English and spent the first part of class choosing parts. Quatre scored the lead—not that there was anyone to oppose him. Juri made a half-hearted attempt but was content to play the brash young swordsman, which she had to admit was more suited to her character, while the role of the antagonist went to Trowa.

Relena and Dorothy were there as well. They hardly noticed the chilly silence that hovered between the two young men—not that Quatre was about to point it out to them—and insisted they all have lunch together. Just the four St. Gabriels transfer students. For old time's sake.

They met at a little round table on the cafeteria terrace, and Dorothy suggested Relena try reading their fortunes. "You do Tarot?" Quatre asked her, showing more interest than perhaps he felt—anything to cover up the palpable tension between himself and Trowa, who felt a thousand miles away though he was sitting right there next to Quatre.

"Not really," Relena said. But she retrieved the cards from her bag as quickly as though they had been sitting on top in anticipation of Dorothy's suggestion. "But Milliardo bought them for me when he was in Venice, so I thought I should at least try to learn." By the backs of them alone they looked fairly pricey, with embossed gold and indigo diamonds. "Who should I read first?"

"Not me," Quatre said with a chuckle. "I'd rather not know what's in store for me, in case I ruin it."

Relena raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know you were superstitious."

"Never underestimate the power of suggestion."

"If you're nervous because she's an amateur, that's understandable," Dorothy said, and the other girl shot her a cross look. "Do Triton," she suggested, pretending she didn't notice.

Relena looked up at the young man in question. "Is that all right with you?" He looked a little surprised at first at being put on the spot, but nodded. "Any particular question you want to have answered?" Relena asked as she shuffled the cards. "About grades? Or a girl, maybe?"

"_I_'d like to see what advice the cards give him for next week," Dorothy said before Trowa could answer for himself. But by his shrug, it was all the same to him.

Relena had him cut the deck, then she laid out three cards in a row, took a deep breath, and turned the one on the left over. On it, five youths mixed in a chaotic bout, but their weapons were harmless sticks. "Five of Wands, reversed."

"Ooohhh." Dorothy leaned forward in interest. "What does it mean?"

"No idea." With a shy laugh, Relena dug back into her bag, from which she eventually pulled a small handbook. "I haven't memorized them all yet. Let's see, Five of Wands. . . . This says it points to competition and conflict, or breaking away from something. Since it's reversed, maybe the conflict is more subconscious, like indecision, or resentment."

Quatre had been paying more attention to his lunch until then, but now he looked up. The card might have been Trowa's, but it seemed to hit so close to home it might as well have been meant for him. He cringed inside, dreading the inevitable question one of them would ask with ignorant carelessness: You resent someone, Triton?

Instead, Dorothy said: "This makes sense. Competition could mean joining the fencing club."

Beside her, Relena nodded. "Or it could be referring to his settling in here, if we're supposed to read it as a breaking away. With Triton here, that makes five of us from St. Gabriels. Well, if you count Heero. . . ."

Those weren't the interpretations Quatre would have made, however. He glanced over at his old friend, who watched the cards thoughtfully and distantly while he ate his salad, as though he were merely an observer of anyone else's fortune but his own. It hurt Quatre inside to think Trowa had come all this way to resent him or treat him as an opponent—though on some level, Quatre couldn't help feeling that way himself, after what happened yesterday. It was easy to lose perspective on the fencing strip. And after the circumstances of their parting more than a year ago. . . .

He didn't notice as Relena flipped over the next card, the Page of Swords.

"Well, this is convenient. All the St. Gabriels students at one table."

Quatre started.

"President Touga," the girls said in unison, one with admiration unsuccessfully checked, the other icily. "To what do we owe the pleasure?" said Dorothy, not bothering to hide her not-entirely-playful sarcasm.

Touga returned the gesture with a debonair smile, but his attention was clearly with her friend. "Oh, are you reading someone's fortune?" he asked as he casually placed one hand on the back of Relena's chair.

"Trying to," Relena said.

"'Trying'? Am I interrupting?"

At his apologetic tone, however assumed it was, she blushed modestly. "No," she assured him. "I'm just not very good yet."

He smiled gently, but Quatre had seen that look enough times to know there was more to it than met the eye. It was that smile that, when Touga met your gaze, said he knew something he wasn't supposed to—said you were being too transparent, putting your own secrets out there free for the taking, but they would be safe with him if you played along. He lowered his voice. "I wonder if your cards say anything about you having lunch with me tomorrow. Say . . . noon-ish?"

On the other side of her, Dorothy rolled her eyes. "She can't," she told him. "We're studying for a French exam tomorrow."

Touga shot her an amused look. "Miss Peacecraft can speak for herself."

"Sorry." Relena had been peeking at the next card in the deck, and she grinned when she recognized it and held it up in front of his face. The Hanged Man: delay. "Like Dorothy says, I already have plans."

After a moment, Touga chuckled and backed off, never one to take rejection poorly. "Fair enough," he said with a sigh. "Maybe next week then." He turned slightly as if to go.

Before he could, however, he added, ever so matter-of-factly: "Oh, and, Quatre, don't forget we have a council meeting today at four."

Quatre looked down at his lunch. He no longer felt hungry. "Right."

When their upperclassman had left and was out of earshot, Dorothy snorted. "Well, you can give him credit for one thing. He doesn't waste time getting to the point."

Beside her, Relena smiled to herself. "I think he's nice."

Dorothy looked hurt. "Don't tell me you actually believe that act." When Relena coyly turned back to her Tarot manual, her friend laughed in disbelief. "Come on, Relena! That _crocodile_? You told me you only went in for serious boys like Heero."

"And I thought _you_ had a crush on Juri Arisugawa," the other said with a knowing sideways glance over the top of the book. In response, Dorothy scowled, causing Relena to grin accusingly. "Why, Dorothy Catalonia, I do believe you're jealous."

"Am not," Dorothy professed, but it was apparent there wasn't much truth behind it. "I'm just looking out for my friend's best interests. Nothing wrong with that, is there?"

"Oh, no, nothing at all."

While the two girls were busy teasing each other—and trying unsuccessfully to resume their reading—Quatre glanced over at Trowa. The way he had turned back to his lunch, it was as though he was the only one at the table. This was the first time they'd truly had to talk in more than a year, just the two of them, and he had nothing to say?

"Why have you been ignoring me all day?" Quatre mumbled into the hand on which he was leaning his chin.

"I haven't been ignoring you," came the nonchalant response. Trowa took another bite. "Besides, you haven't exactly been Mr. Congeniality yourself. Putting me on the spot in music—"

"You seemed to like that."

His biting tone wasn't lost on Trowa. "I did. But then you avoided me completely in second period."

"Did I?" Quatre said, not without a touch of reactionary sarcasm. "I'm surprised you noticed with so many people vying for your attention."

Trowa looked up briefly. "Are you jealous?"

Once again Quatre was forced to consider the question that had been weighing so heavily on his mind since their bout the day before. "Of course not," he said, then amended to himself, not of that.

Trowa pushed the greens around on his plate rather than look at his friend when he said, "Or maybe you're still sore that I beat you on the strip yesterday."

Quatre opened his mouth to deny it, a knee-jerk reaction, but something made him stop. "Maybe I am," he said. It was difficult, but he forced himself to admit the truth. If he did, then maybe Trowa would open up to him, and they could go back to how things were before, pick up where they left off. Maybe they could pretend the last year hadn't happened. Quatre sighed. "You're right. I'm sore that you beat me. But can you blame me, after being stuck in a rut for so long? I just got so used to winning, is all. I . . . I can get used to this too."

He winced. Looking down, Trowa stabbed a tomato wedge with his fork. Quatre knew he wasn't fooling either of them.

"Hey," he said louder. "I'm sorry. Are you happy now?"

Trowa stopped, and Quatre held his breath. Those olive green eyes blinked slowly a couple times as he thought it over.

"No," he decided at last.

At least he was honest.

"What more do you want from me, Trowa?"

Across the table, Dorothy looked up. "Why do you keep calling him Trowa?"

Relena leaned her chin on one hand. "You know, that actually sounds more like what I remember."

"Of course, it does," Quatre said, only vaguely aware he was raising his voice. "Because it's his name."

"Then why'd he tell us it was Triton?"

"Maybe 'Trowa' is short for Triton," Relena suggested, and her friend shrugged, although neither of them quite saw it if the tight, thoughtful lines of their mouths were any indication.

"It isn't short for anything. He lied to you. Trowa," Quatre tried, turning to his old friend, but it was like talking to a brick wall the way he just calmly continued to eat his lunch. "What's the big idea, telling everyone you're this . . . Triton Bloom guy, who you probably made up? I don't understand. Why is it so hard to just tell them your real name? You're a Barton, for Christ's sake!"

From some well of spite buried deep within himself, he heard himself add: "Aren't you?"

"Quatre."

He stopped. Trowa met his eyes then, but it was impossible to read any emotion behind his stare, or in his voice when he said simply: "You're making a scene."

It was only partly true. Aside from the two girls across the table, some of the nearby students had turned to see what the fuss was about.

But it was enough to make Quatre fall silent out of self-conscious shame, however, nor did he know how to respond now even if a part of him felt obligated to. He felt the blood rush to his face as he turned back to his lunch, trying to muster up what was left of his appetite. He forced himself to chew and swallow the cold noodles he placed in his mouth. Relena began uncertainly, "Is everything al—"

"Forget it, it's not important." Trowa waved it off, leaning forward and finally taking an interest in his own fortune. "What's this last card?"

"Oh, right." Clearing her throat, she turned over the final card.

The image of Gabriel descending from Heaven, blowing his horn for the souls of the deceased: the Judgment. It startled Trowa when he recognized it, and in some roundabout way satisfied him as well, but none of the others seemed to notice.

"Mm, this is interesting," Relena said.

"Interesting bad?" Dorothy asked, glancing over.

Whatever she was about to answer, however, was cut off by the loud scrape of chair legs on the tile as Quatre suddenly stood.

The three looked up at him, curiosity and concern on their faces, but he didn't care. He couldn't stand it anymore, this distance that so stubbornly remained between him and Trowa in every little gesture, every careful word—this distance he so badly wanted to get rid of, though it seemed like more effort than it was worth and he hadn't a clue how. Did no one else see it? As he looked at his hands, his fingertips white as they pressed against the tabletop, he was aware of the hush that had spread to the tables around them, the eyes that must have been trained on his back. "What's the matter?" Trowa asked him cautiously, just low enough for the two of them to hear, and—it seemed to Quatre—with an intimacy he hadn't heard in more than a year. An intimacy that, after the way he'd left, he was sure he'd never hear again.

An intimacy that was a day too late.

"I want a rematch," he said.

Trowa's expression darkened. "I thought you said you were fine with it."

"Damn it, that's not what I said—" But Quatre stopped himself, determined not to make this into a decision of passion—even though that was exactly what it was. "Prove to me your win wasn't a fluke," he started again, his tone even, reasonable. "After class today, in the gym."

With a slightly amused smile, Trowa stood. He had to have known how condescending that look was. "Are you challenging me to duel, Quatre?"

"I am. Do you accept?"

Across the table, their two classmates stared at them, lost and more than a little worried, the cards and food in front of them momentarily forgotten. How men could change subjects so spontaneously and still be on the same page was beyond them.

* * *

So many students crowded against the wall of the gym as to block the light streaming through the windows—high school boys and middle school girls, brought by gossip and curiosity, but above all the promise of a good fight. Utena even found herself caught up in the excitement. Knowing one of the boys was Triton, she was curious to see if he was as good as rumor made him out to be.

On the other hand, half her grade had a crush on Quatre, if only for superficial reasons, and it seemed Wakaba was no exception, her undying love for Utena aside. The gossip drifted around them as they pressed in to catch a glimpse.

"Did you hear? Did you hear? The new student and Quatre go way back."

"But did you see what happened at lunch? I've never seen Quatre so serious about something like that."

"Well, it's nothing new for friends to turn into enemies. Unless, of course, they weren't exactly friends. If you believe the rumors. . . ."

"Don't tell me you do! Last I heard Quatre has _three_ girlfriends, all in different grades, and the new student is said to be _very_ close with his sister, if you know what I mean."

"So who do you want to win?"

"Are you kidding? I can't choose between them!"

They took their places on the fencing strip and saluted in silence. There were no friendly wishes of luck this time—they would have been empty and pointless. Quatre felt no sympathy toward his dear old friend. He was here to win. He had no other goal in mind.

He glanced over at the sidelines, where Relena stood tense next to Dorothy.

"Isn't it wonderful?" her friend said in a dreamy voice. "Old teammates, reunited at last, settling their quarrels with a duel. Blood for blood, eye for eye. And they said chivalry was dead. It's rather romantic, don't you think?"

"I think it's absurd," Relena countered. "I don't see why they couldn't just talk it out." She crossed her arms, unsure whether she was more unimpressed or concerned for her two friends. "Honestly, men just don't make any sense sometimes."

Dorothy's eyes sparkled with excitement, however, as did those of the boys from their class as they rallied behind Trowa. He whipped his épée back to his side with unnecessary flourish to amuse them. Quatre couldn't help thinking they were backing the wrong side. But they would see, soon enough. The fight would bring out their beloved Triton Bloom's true colors.

Assuming the on guard position, Quatre smiled to himself. If it was a show Trowa wanted, that's what Quatre would give him.

Miki, their acting referee, gave them the okay to engage with a nod, stopwatch ready in his hand. It had begun.

Quatre attacked first with quick, short steps. Trowa parried, but as Quatre had guessed he might, he still moved his arms more then necessary, and especially too much for this kind of duel. He hit Trowa's sword arm even as his friend was going for his chest.

"You've picked up some of Nichol's bad habits," Quatre remarked. "Don't forget where you are."

Trowa shook his head, chastising himself lightly as he moved back into position.

It was warm in the gym—a hot day to begin with, and the closely packed bodies only made it stifling inside. Quatre already felt the sweat trickling down along his hairline, tickling his skin. If his head weren't a target, he would have liked to fight without the mask. He was determined to see this through to its natural end, however, no matter what the conditions, and that was to his victory.

He beckoned for Trowa to attack him, which he did obligingly, this time with more control. They went back and forth, Trowa successfully keeping the tip of Quatre's weapon away from his body but not attempting any hits himself. Through the mesh of his mask, Quatre might have noticed Trowa's darting eyes studying him, if he wasn't so busy concentrating on the trajectory of his old friend's sword point. He wondered why Trowa hadn't scored a touch when he had had plenty of opportunities.

Then, out of the blue, he made to lunge. Quatre saw an opening and went for it, landing a touch on Trowa's bent knee. With a slight sigh of relief Quatre thanked his quick reflexes: if he had been a half-second later the point would have gone to Trowa. The button of the other épée grazed his jacket just over his breast, halted when the first touch had been made.

Quatre had to find some humor in the significance of it. His opponent was going for what would have been the mortal wounds if they had been using real weapons. But it would do him no good: They were the more difficult touches to make. "You're wasting your time."

Trowa just shrugged.

Quatre rolled his eyes. He knew when he was being toyed with. "You always were a showoff."

"And you were always a smartass," Trowa parried. With a cocky tug on his glove, he switched the épée to his left hand. "That's one thing I always liked about you. But don't get me wrong. I despised it too."

When he got back into a ready position that way, instead of taking the sword once more in his right, Quatre held back, confused. "What are you—"

"Another thing I've picked up from Nichol," Trowa explained. "While you were gone, I learned how to fence fairly well with my left." Before Quatre could remind him, he added: "Not as well as my right, I suppose, but that should cancel out any advantage the position would naturally give me."

"You're serious?" Quatre asked with a chuckle. While a part of him wondered with trepidation what Trowa had in mind, the other saw it as a sure win. When, with a cautious glance at Miki, Trowa asked if he had any objections, Quatre told him he had none at all.

They engaged once again. Immediately Quatre noticed a difference. Trowa held his arm straighter, but whether out of skill or awkwardness he couldn't say. He had gone up against south-paws before and hated the way their inside line tended to disappear just when he went for it, like water receding before Tantalus. He was thankful on some level that Trowa had waited until they could bout with the épée before he pulled this stunt.

Trowa scored his first touch. It had taken seven seconds according to Miki's count. Quatre frowned. This fight was starting to resemble the last one. But he refused to let the outcome be the same.

"Why does it bother you so much?" Trowa asked him at one point, grunting slightly with the effort of the fight. "That I beat you. I thought you would have been happy that I finally got us out of a rut." He was trying to incite Quatre—even with that sad, apologetic tone of voice—Quatre knew that much. Trying to rile him in front of the crowd, humiliate him, make him resort to threats and insults just as he had criticized Juri for doing in the past. "But then, my win isn't really what upset you, is it? There's something else."

Quatre counterattacked. A sudden flash of anger made him put more energy into the move than he knew was necessary. "You can't come here like this, expecting you can just pick up where you left off," he said. He kept his voice calm. "As though no time has gone by at all."

He thought he saw Trowa smirk through the mask, but his features were just dark blurs behind the mesh.

"But it has. A whole year's gone by, Trowa. The situation's changed. Understand that."

A sharp squeak of shoes on hardwood floor as he forced his friend back.

"I still haven't forgiven you for not coming that day, when you knew how much it meant to me—when you _promised_ me—"

The point of Trowa's épée hit his mask solidly, right between the eyes, silencing him.

"When _I_ promised?" His arm and body were rigid. Quatre could feel his green-eyed gaze boring into him, dissecting him. "I'm the one who should be trying to forgive. Need I remind you: _I'm_ the one who was abandoned by my best friend."

Quatre's jaw clenched painfully, as though his subconscious was afraid incriminating words would force themselves from him at the slightest provocation. Lies that would only worsen the guilt he already felt inside. (He backed away from Trowa's épée and engaged it once again with his own.) Truths that would make him look like a fool.

"Why bring that up now?" Quatre hissed between his teeth, too softly for the other to hear him. Wasn't it obvious to Trowa, who had always seemed before to know his heart, that he was in agony? Why open the wound further? Though perhaps, his conscience whispered, that was the intent. A malicious intent. The idea angered him more than anything, but he tried to suppress it even as he felt it battling its way to the surface. He didn't need an old argument distracting him from achieving victory.

Although, if he were honest, he didn't want to discuss that old injury at all. He wanted it to go away.

He attacked Trowa's sword arm, slipping his blade under the other. But just as he did so, Trowa brought his sword down on top of it. He slid his blade along Quatre's, forcing them both out of line and far inside as he pushed forward. The students standing closest to the strip stepped back out of the way on instinct. The move even took Quatre by surprise. Their blades crossed just above the handguards out to his left, their arms crossed awkwardly over their chests. And though Trowa stood just far enough away to avoid bodily contact, there was a menace to his proximity that was as powerful in keeping Quatre where he was as the pressure on top of his sword.

"What's the real reason you wanted to come here?" Trowa asked, his voice so low none of the bystanders would hear. "It couldn't have been for the education. I know you always loved a challenge, but you were never that serious about your studies."

"What would you know," Quatre countered, "about my seriousness? You never took any interest in what I thought was important."

"And what about what _I_thought was important?"

At this distance Quatre could smell him, and count each hard breath. There was a certain cruelty to this closeness that Quatre resented, that mocked his feelings. It made him doubt his control, and he hated that. If he had looked to the sidelines, broken eye contact, he would have been able to appeal to Miki to put an end to the humiliation. A fellow member of the student council, he would have called Trowa's foul in a heartbeat—if he were only given the sign. But, like all the other bystanders, Miki couldn't turn away. A strangely scientific reluctance to do anything that might affect the bout's natural outcome prevented him from speaking up himself.

If he only had the desire, Quatre could have stopped this unfair duel right then and there and no one would have accused him of cowardice.

However, Trowa had stepped over the line. That couldn't be ignored. "Why won't you tell me the truth?" he murmured. "There's something you're keeping back. Are you ashamed you wanted the prestige so badly you were willing to sacrifice our friendship for it? Or maybe . . ."

Trowa's tone took a sarcastic turn.

"Maybe it was because of me."

"Not everything's about you!"

Quatre shoved himself away. He knew it was forbidden, but the rules didn't seem to have any weight anymore. Shoulder pushing off shoulder, they stumbled away from each other. The crowd's gasp urged them not to trip and fall.

Quatre was first to regain his footing, and as he moved back he brought his épée in line and jabbed. The button scraped the top of Trowa's unprotected sword hand, which he had brought up in front of himself for balance. Though blunt, it cut through the skin as it slid off.

Trowa winced, but other than that offered no complaint as he prepared himself once again. That wound, shallow and slow to bleed, was insignificant next to the one he had suffered inside, and would never show, at Quatre's outburst. It echoed off the surfaces of the gym, off the staring faces—an uncharacteristic vehemence imbuing the words with wounding power. Diplomacy—however halfhearted the attempt—had clearly failed, honor given way. For both sides, it was now a matter of blood.

It was war.

They fought no-holds-barred. Anger made them quick and less accurate. Both were determined not to lose and guarded themselves closely, each driven by the desire to see his opponent's defeat, and it was no doubt because of this that they managed not to be touched themselves for so long. The clash of metal rang painfully in Quatre's ear, blurring together and driving his own heartbeat and evasive footsteps. He no longer noticed the heat or the apprehensive faces around them. He felt his emotions rise unchecked within him—the jealousy from earlier that day had bloomed into contempt, into blame, into righteous hate—and it felt good. Free. He no longer cared about their irrationality. He no longer cared if they took the reins back from him. He channeled those deadly emotions into his sword as he thrust.

Foibles grazed one another. Trowa leaned toward him as well. Was he going to parry, to attempt a cross?

But . . . no.

The button dug into Quatre's shoulder just as the impact of his own weapon jerked him to a stop. It had hit Trowa in the side. Their violent momentum made the practice swords arch dangerously as they continued to close the distance, protesting their urge to run one another through.

Quatre didn't see the shock on the faces around them, but he heard the collective gasp. It jarred him back to reality, an admonishing sound, a sound of disgust: How could they treat each other so violently? Didn't they know the rules? Weren't they friends? Quatre's cheeks burned with the shame he felt at giving in to his emotions in front of all these witnesses—and not being able to take them to some conclusion more definite than this.

It had been a double touch. Neither of them would refute that. It took only a second for Quatre to recount their scores, and when he did the result angered him even more. It made him increase the pressure on his blade even though it hurt him to do so.

He winced. This wasn't how it was supposed to end.

It was a tie. There was no winner.

All that, and the bout had proved nothing.

"Stop it! Stop this instant!"

Strong arms pushed Quatre away. Unprepared, he stumbled for a second as the pressure on his sword was released. This he realized only reluctantly.

Trowa, on the other hand, like a lion defending his kill, instinctively turned on the newcomer. A sharp clang startled him and he saw his attacker was not Quatre after all but Juri.

His eyes went wide. His épée had come within an inch of her unprotected chest when she batted it away with her own. Ashamed, he backed away. He gasped for air as he tugged off his mask, as though it had been suffocating him and he only now realized his desperation to breathe.

Quatre took off his own, his hand, his whole body shaking as he did so. His cheeks were hot with anger and embarrassment as he looked at his feet. He avoided looking at the bystanders, afraid of what he might see there. Even the admiration he knew to expect from some disgusted him. He expected the punishment to come, like the swift fall of an axe. He was not to be disappointed.

"What the hell do you two think you're doing?" Juri said, turning to him. "Trying to kill each other?"

Her voice carried clearer than an orator's in the gym. It was only right. This was her kingdom, after all, and they had disgraced it in her absence. The unadulterated anger in her voice shook Quatre's into submission, and guilt reared its head within him once again.

"What's gotten into you? You know you shouldn't be staging any duels without consulting your captain! You know Ohtori is specific about that! And taking your private squabbles public, disgracing yourself and this school—and for what? Someone could have been seriously hurt, and then what would you have done?"

It struck them that she wasn't talking about just the two of them when Miki told her, "I had everything under control—"

"Obviously you didn't!" she snapped, but her wrath remained focused on the two tenth-graders. "Do you realize how many rules you've just broken? I hope you two are satisfied, because you could both be suspended if I have anything to do with it."

An uncomfortable silence descended the moment her words died away, not even a cough or a shift from a bystander to keep them from sinking in. In his peripheral vision, Quatre saw Dorothy and Relena glancing between the two of them. How disappointed they must have been with their old schoolmates.

Trowa's eyes were downcast, his face dark with shame. He hardly noticed when someone suddenly exclaimed, "Triton, you're bleeding!" A few girls rushed forward then to offer their handkerchiefs, grabbing his limp hand. And then—as if a gate had been lifted—the crowd erupted into chatter again.

Juri's eyes widened momentarily when she saw Trowa's injury, and Quatre feared the look she would give him when she turned. It loomed in his mind like the fall of a whip. He kept his gaze down to avoid the sting when she told him curtly, "Get dressed. Touga wants to see us in fifteen minutes."

He could only find the courage to reply with a slight nod.

When she had passed, he looked up at Trowa, who was now the center of attention. What Quatre would have given to know what was going on inside his mind, but he found he could read nothing in those cold, olive-green eyes.

* * *

The next day passed uneventfully. The grounds were quiet and he hadn't heard a word from Quatre—nor had he realistically expected to.

Trowa had been practicing alone in the gym—it was eerily peaceful when there was no one else around, like some other planet of which he was the sole inhabitant. He was bent over one of the fountains outside when Juri approached him.

He hardly heard her footsteps over the rush of water from the gooseneck faucet, too lost in thought to see much beyond the drops that fell from his face and hair, disappearing down the drain. It was only when she said, "I've been meaning to talk to you, but I didn't expect to catch you _here_," that he looked up. "Are you all right?" Her voice was gentle, not at all like it had been when she had stepped between them on the strip.

He turned off the water, wiped his face with his sleeve. "Yeah," he said simply. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Gee, I don't know. You and Quatre were only trying to run each other through yesterday. I really don't get you two. And your disregard for the rules. . . ." She sighed, remembering how she had given them the same speech the day before. Shifted back down a gear. "How's your hand?"

"It doesn't hurt," he said. He hadn't bothered to bandage it again after it had stopped bleeding. "Am I banned from the club? I did attack its captain."

Juri thought it over for a moment. "Not banned," she decided, "but you might have been if anyone had been hurt—especially myself. You look as though you've reprimanded yourself enough already, though, no need for any _official_ discipline. As it is, I find myself feeling kindly toward you for what you did, on principle." She shrugged. "Quatre told me the duel was all his idea."

"I'm equally responsible for accepting his challenge, and allowing it to get out of hand," Trowa said.

Whether that was what she wanted to hear or not, she smiled. "Perhaps," she said.

"And this . . . kindness. . . . You feel that way toward Quatre as well?"

"There is a mutual respect between us," she said coldly, and not bothering to hide it. "We've agreed to disagree. I could have him punished, I suppose—the student council has already given him a slap on the wrist—but, to be honest, it's enough of a treat to see him make a hypocrite of himself. That's why I can't be too angry with you two: From my standpoint, it was worth it to see someone take him down a peg."

He smiled. There was something in the way she organized her feelings on the matter, so analytically, the way she made the two of them out to be pawns in a game for her own enjoyment that he found himself drawn to. "But don't let it happen again," she added quickly when she saw his look.

"It won't happen again," he echoed.

She gave him a curious look. He thought at first prompted by his cheeky manner, until she said, "Why did you ask about me and Quatre?" She cocked her head. "You seem to know him very well."

"It's a hobby of mine, trying to figure people out."

She didn't believe him for a second. "You know him remarkably well. The way you looked at each other—casual friends can't . . . read each other like that. What _exactly_ is your relationship again?" At his raised eyebrow she elaborated, "I've heard the rumors."

"We were best friends," he said. "That's all you need to know." But he saw the questions his response raised on her face. Why the past tense? What happened? Questions he was, on some level, afraid to hear asked out loud. "You're not going to practice today?" he asked to change the subject.

"I was just on my way back to the dorm," she said. Both pretended that was the truth.

"I'll walk you there," he offered.

Juri didn't refuse, and as they walked she asked him about his old fencing club. He was glad for a chance to reminisce—and he avoided discussing his and Quatre's parts in it as much as possible. He told her about Nichol and his methods, instead, the competitions his school had entered, and even sneaked in a good word or two for Dorothy. Her gaze followed the movement of their tall shadows on the pavement as he talked.

When they reached the long fountain that acted as a crossroads between the dorms, he hesitated to pass it so soon. What had been weighing on his mind since lunch the day before could no longer be ignored, not while he still had a chance to address it. She stopped as well, waiting for him to speak.

"Actually, I had been meaning to talk to you, too," Trowa said. "I was hoping you could explain something to me. . . ." He fished around in his pocket. "Namely, what am I supposed to do with this?"

He held something out to her that glinted red in the evening light. It took her a moment to realize what it was, that it was a pink rose that produced the color. A rose identical to the one that rested on her ring finger. "Where did you get that?" She reached out for it, thinking he would allow her to examine it more closely.

But he pulled it away. She looked up and saw his dark eyes searching her apprehensively, studying her reaction. He was proceeding with caution—and wisely, she noted with some humor, in a school like this. "Where did you get yours?" he countered, and when she said nothing added: "I noticed you had one just like it—and so does the student council president. And Quatre. I didn't feel comfortable asking them, though."

Juri smirked, though she looked surprised as well. "You feel comfortable asking me?"

"Not really," he admitted. "But I would like to know what this is, and I'm guessing you have less of a reason to lie to me."

She was quiet for a moment as she sat down at the edge of the fountain and closed her eyes, deciding what and whether to tell him. When she opened them again, they seemed to stare into thin air—into the distant past—and when she spoke her tone was full of a quiet reverence, allowing him a glimpse of a facet of her personality he hadn't seen as yet.

"As the story goes," she said, "once a man, traveling far from home, was persuaded by his friend to try his luck against the best fencers in France. Just before his first bout, a woman whose beauty was well known approached and gave him a little bouquet of roses. Everyone else wanted such an honor for himself. So the man pinned the bouquet to his chest then and there and said, 'This I will protect against all opposers!' And that day he crossed blades with many able opponents, all of which tried to take his prize from him. But the bouquet survived completely intact. Not one leaf, not one petal, was harmed."

She blinked and looked over at him. "That's what we do," she said, "we who were chosen to bear the Rose Seal. The ring designates you as qualified to participate in the duels, and when your time comes you wear your own rose on your breast into battle—to protect against all opponents."

"I don't understand."

"These rings," she said, slower and clearer to drive the point home, "are the marks of those who were chosen to be duelists." As he sat down beside her, she raised her left hand to show off her own, twisting it with her thumb so the silver band began to shimmer. "They were given to us by End of the World. Their gifts, if you will, to each member of the student council. And a few select outsiders. . . ."

Such as himself, he thought, thinking back to the letter with no signature. But that still didn't explain why. As she trailed off, he asked, "What's End of the World?"

Juri smiled to herself at that. He perceived a note of sadness as she repeated that roadblock of a phrase: "That's a mystery."

"No one knows?"

"They—or he, or whatever End of the World _is_—they set the rules and times for the duels. We simply follow the orders that come down to us. That's all we need to know." She leaned back a little, sighing. "If you win, the Rose Bride becomes yours and so does everything that comes with her, maybe even the power to revolutionize the world. "Don't get your hopes up; it's probably no more than a metaphor. But there is something great hidden within this school, something that takes a special kind of person—a noble person—to unlock. Even then, though, you may only catch a glimpse of that thing you're searching for. If you're lucky."

She had tried to maintain a professional distance from the details as she told him this, but there was an underlying wistfulness, a very personal passion slipping through. It continued to fascinate him, the slow unveiling of different layers of her personality she tried so hard to repress.

"I still don't understand," Trowa said. Right then, she might as well have been speaking in tongues.

Juri nodded. "You will eventually, if you ever get the chance to see it for yourself. I've probably said too much already without first consulting the president.

"In any case," she told him, "you should wear the ring. It's an honorable distinction. Don't keep it hidden in your pocket. —No, on your left," she added when he started to put it on his right hand.

Like I'm engaged, Trowa thought with a sense of anxiety for he knew not what. But excitement also. Slipping it onto his finger, he admired it for a moment. The way it only seemed more brilliant when worn, seemed to shine, as though it was incomplete without a living finger to wrap itself around. It was heavy too. He had felt like this once before, this exciting novelty, he remembered, when he was in love.

"I owe you one," he said. "If it weren't for your feelings of kindness toward me I might never have known that. Perhaps you and I could have a bout tomorrow after class and I could learn more." He expected either the prospect or the underlying insolence in his tone would amuse her.

She did not respond. Instead he noticed she was staring at him with a queer, distant look in her deep eyes. "What?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Nothing. You just remind me of someone is all. Someone I once—"

But then she caught herself. "Someone you once . . . what?" Trowa asked, leaning closer. He lowered his voice. "Loved?" He admired the way she guarded herself so closely. Getting to know her was a game of chess, a challenge of conquests and sacrifices. Perhaps it was his youth, but on an intellectual level, it aroused feelings akin to desire, this uncertainty whether or not he was moving in the right direction. He saw the tug-of-war in her eyes, caught between her wariness and some lingering fondness for things past.

The former won out quickly, however, and she told him: "It's really none of your business, is it?"

If her response had meant to put distance between them, it failed. He chuckled.

Beside him, Juri scoffed. "I didn't think you knew how to laugh," she said. Despite the coolness of her comment, when he looked back at her she was smiling. A sign of approval.

"You're right," he said, relaxing, tilting his head back. "It is none of my business."

He wondered briefly about those rumors around him and Quatre she had mentioned, was curious to know what more had been said about him than he had been allowed to hear. Could he trust her, a stranger in this strange place and hardly a sturdy rock to lean on? Would she still look at him the same way, still approve of his impudent manner, if she knew what he was really like?

Meanwhile she murmured something about his being full of surprises and his inquisitiveness coming back to haunt him—he wasn't really paying attention to the words. He liked the sound of her voice. It reminded him of the virgin goddesses in their Latin stories, who were masculine in their virtues and seductive in their inaccessibility. The thick, heavy curls that framed her face seemed like burnished gold against ivory in the twilight. He could see why Dorothy was so attracted. Juri Arisugawa was something to be worshipped. He reached up and brushed one of the locks away from her face, never mind that it just bounced back into place. She went still under his touch, just as he expected she might. He was committing a sacrilege after all. His pulse quickened at the thought. His hand dropped to her shoulder, caressed and then gripped her arm—

And he kissed her.

* * *

**Chapter notes:** Regarding tarot, some interpretations for Page of Swords are communications (news, gossip, letters, etc.); being able to or having a fondness for figuring people out, especially where strengths and weaknesses are concerned; trickery; or new experiences.

The biggest difference between foil and épée fencing is that the latter has an unlimited target area. The story Juri tells is from one about Domenico Angelo, who is the man credited with turning fencing into a sport.


	5. 

She was too shocked to move at first, like an animal that plays dead to elude a predator. And Trowa had to admit that on some level, like a predator, it was the thrill of the conquest that had driven him. He felt no warmth toward Juri. What was so exhilarating was to feel her lips stiffen under his. To see it bother her. If only he could do the same to Quatre, he thought. And, imagining it was Quatre's mouth, Quatre's arm tearing out of his grip, he pressed harder.

Juri pulled herself away, and the palm of her hand connected with his cheek with a loud slap that ricocheted off the surrounding buildings. The force of it nearly sent Trowa into the water. As he caught himself, he did not raise a hand to his cheek to feel the heat growing there. That would have been an admission of surprise, and he couldn't say he had expected impunity for his actions. After all, he had caught Diana at her bath, so to speak.

"How dare you," Juri growled. Her eyes burned with betrayal. Her lips worked like shutters as she fought to find the right words to express her shock and disgust; and when she could not, just repeated: "How dare you!" She leaped to her feet. "To think I defended you, y-you impudent, egomaniacal . . . What do you have to say for yourself?"

What was there to say? He couldn't apologize for something he didn't regret doing, so he said nothing. A small smile crept onto his lips.

Seeing it, she let out a strangled cry. "You're both insane!" she said and strode quickly away.

But there were curses in her eyes left unmade, and he knew not to expect the same kindness she had professed just moments ago in the future.

If only either of them had seen the two girls passing through on their way home from the library, their only witnesses. Would it have made a difference? Of course, what transpired that night made it around the tenth grade the next day with all the exaggeration and error of hearsay; and the two participants stubbornly pretended not to hear a word of it.

Quatre heard, however, heard all the ways it could be told. Heard all too clearly.

* * *

•

* * *

"I pray thee good Mercutio," Miki says as he tugs at his collar, sprawled over the steps of the memorial hall, "let's retire. The day is hot, the Capulets abroad; and if we meet we shall not 'scape a brawl, for now these hot days, is the mad blood stirring."

Beside him, leaning against a stone pillar, Juri chortles. "Thou art like one of these fellows that when he enters the confines of a tavern claps me his sword upon the table, and says—" And she waves her sword arm melodramatically. "—'God send me no need of thee'; and by the operation of the second cup draws him on the drawer, when indeed there is no need."

Miki looks up. "Am I like such a fellow?"

She turns to him suddenly, a wicked gleam in her eyes and at the hollow of her throat exposed beneath her unbuttoned collar. "Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as any in Italy; and as soon moved to be moody, and as soon moody to be moved."

"And what to?"

"Nay an there were two such we should have none shortly, for one would kill the other. Thou?" She smiles to herself and crosses her arms knowingly. "Why thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes; what eye, but such an eye, would spy out such a quarrel? Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat, and yet thy head has been beaten as addle as an egg for quarrelling. Thou hast quarrelled with a man for coughing in the street, because he hath wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun. Didst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter? With another for tying his new shoes with old riband? And yet thou wilt tutor me from quarrelling."

She looks genuinely pleased with herself, so that Miki cannot help a sheepish grin and a toss of his azure head. "An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art," he says, "any man should buy the fee-simple of my life for an hour and a half."

"The fee-simple? O simple!"

Coyly she nudges him, but he hardly notices. "By my head," says he, distracted, "here comes the Capulets."

And sure enough, moving toward them across the courtyard, a group of rakish young men in sky blue, led by that sad-faced duelist with olive green eyes. At the sight of him, Juri turns her back. "By my heel, I care not."

* * *

"I must say, gentlemen, I do think I have that story rather well-rehearsed. Why just the other day I was heading into town when this fellow I know saw me in the distance and called out to me in jest—"

"Have you heard, have you heard? Word is that new student is nothing but trouble. Ladies, be careful, a green-eyed boy like that has something suspicious up his sleeves, you can be sure of it. Why, I heard he's a real Georgy Porgy!"

"A Georgy Porgy, now? You made that up."

"Scout's honor, I did not. —Eh, but there're branches in your hair! And why the cold manner? O-ho, now it makes sense! You were sneaking off with him after all, weren't you? Rolling in the bushes, hm? Don't try to hide it from me. I want details. Details!"

"By Jove—"

"By who? By mauve? How odd to swear on a color. By Mab, surely."

"By _whom_. By Jupiter! You have a one-track mind—sure to be disappointed. I clipped these boughs from the North Garden, perfectly on purpose."

"Eh? Not the North Garden you say!"

"Yes, I say the North Garden."

"Not the garden at the north end of campus!"

"Yes, the very same."

"Not the garden of the old student council president's laurels, may he rest in peace!"

"He's not dead yet. And we're getting a touch repetitive, aren't we?"

". . ."

"Yes, I plucked them from the old student council president's North Garden laurels with a folding aluminum ladder and a meaty set of branch clippers, thanks so much for asking."

"You're most welcome. They have veritably taken over, if you ask me. If you don't cut them back every year in the autumntime, they'll shoot up all scraggly and choke out everything in the garden! What a world, what a world!"

"You have to give a little to get a little. That's life."

"But by Jupiter, by Julius, you do look like a despot in that greenery."

"And a despot does look the part to make a salad."

"Because revenge is a dish best served cold with a side of Caesar!"

* * *

"Follow me close, for I will speak to them," Trowa tells his companions, and when he reaches the bottom of the steps where the two stand: "Gentlemen, good den; a word with one of you."

"And but one word with one of us?" Juri faces him with an impudent grin. "Couple it with something, make it a word and a blow."

A subtle wildness in Trowa's own expression tells her he is tempted. "You shall find me apt enough to that sir, an you will give me occasion."

"Could you not take some occasion without giving?"

"Mercutio, thou consortest with Romeo."

She starts, feigning hurt with a hand to her heart. "Consort? What, dost thou make us minstrels? An thou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords. Here's my fiddlestick," she says, laying an itching hand on the hilt of her rapier; "here's that shall make you dance. Zounds, consort!"

Click! goes the stopwatch.

Miki has intercepted her. "We talk here in the public haunt of men," he warns. "Either withdraw unto some private place, or reason coldly of your grievances, or else depart; here all eyes gaze on us."

"Men's eyes were made to look," she breathes, the shade of bloodlust falling over her own, "and let them gaze. I will not budge for no man's pleasure, I."

But Trowa's interest is suddenly moved elsewhere. "Well, peace be with you sir, here comes my man."

Turning to see, Juri scoffs when she recognizes the newcomer. "But I'll be hanged sir, if he wear your livery," says she to Trowa. "Marry go before to field, he'll be your follower; your worship in that sense may call him man."

"Romeo," says Trowa with ice-cold gravity, ignoring her, "the love I bear thee can afford no better term than this—thou art a villain."

But Quatre only smiles when he sees who addresses him. "Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee doth much excuse the appertaining rage to such a greeting—villain I am none. Therefore farewell," he says, turning his back, "I see thou knowest me not."

"Boy," Trowa calls after him, "this shall not excuse the injuries that thou hast done me, therefore turn and draw."

"I do protest I never injured thee," Quatre says, "but love thee better than thou canst devise, till thou shalt know the reason of my love. And so good Capulet, which name I tender as dearly as mine own, be satisfied."

All would have ended there, but Juri sneers and calls to their retreating backs: "O calm, dishonourable, vile submission! Alla stoccata carries it away. Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?"

"What wouldst thou have with me?" Trowa says, a grin tugging at one side of his mouth.

"Good King of Cats," she coos as his ready gaze fixes on her, "nothing but one of your nine lives, that I mean to make bold withal, and as you shall use me hereafter dry-beat the rest of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pilcher by the ears? Make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it be _out_!"

And with that last word of advice, she draws and charges.

* * *

"When making a potato salad, make sure you keep it refrigerated before serving. Otherwise you could get salmonella poisoning from the raw eggs in the mayonnaise. If someone breaks your heart, I say make him a potato salad!"

"Oh, right. I wanted to show you something. Tada! A genuine Chinese finger trap. Some boy gave it to me."

"Sounds suspicious. A gift like that, he's probably trying to make a fool out of you. Whatever you do, don't stick your fingers in it."

"Too late!"

". . . As long as you know how to get it off again."

"Sure, sure, easy as pie. . . . Heh, look at that. It's stuck."

"Well, pulling on it like that will only make it tighter. I hope you're proud of yourself. Face it: You've gotten yourself into a rather sticky situation!"

"It's not funny! I'm dying here and you make jokes! Can't you do anything?"

"Hm. . . . I suppose we'll just have to amputate. There's really no other way."

"Stop kidding around! This is serious! What if I never get out of this? If it keeps getting tighter, I'll have no fingers left! Just the thought makes me sick to my stomach—or maybe that was something I ate."

"Don't tell me it was that potato salad I left on the home-ec counter! It's been sitting out in the sunlight for four hours!"

"Don't worry. I knew you were saving it for someone else, so I finished off the collard greens instead."

". . . The eight-day-old collard greens?"

"They were eight days old? No wonder they didn't agree with me."

"Eight-day-old collard greens wouldn't agree with Superman!"

"This is it for me! The end—the Big One! Do not pass Go! _Ack_— A plague on both your houses! _Thump._"

* * *

The curtains of Juri's lashes finally drop and her head goes limp to one side, copper ringlets falling around like a halo.

In the stunned silence, Miki stands. "O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio is dead." His lament, hushed by fear, seems to echo off the buildings' façades with the gravity of the news. "That gallant spirit hath aspired the clouds, which too untimely here did scorn the earth."

"This day's black fate on more days doth depend," says Quatre solemnly, "this but begins the woe others must end."

"Here comes the furious Tybalt back again."

They turn to watch the victor, whose rapier's still in hand, return.

"Again?" Quatre cries. "In triumph! And Mercutio slain." A sense of dread falls over his companion, but vengeful anger has clouded his heart and eyes. "Away to heaven respective lenity, and fire-eyed fury be my conduct now—now Tybalt take the villain back again that late thou gavest me! for Mercutio's soul is but a little way above our heads, staying for thine to keep him company—"

Juri sneezes, and tries not to laugh when Miki gives her a warning nudge with the toe of his shoe.

"Either thou or I," resumes Quatre, "or both, must go with him."

"Thou wretched boy," says Trowa, his gaze brimming with accusation, "that didst consort him here, shalt with him hence."

Quatre draws his sword. "This shall determine that."

* * *

"Are you dead?"

"—Ah! It came off!"

"You see? All you had to do was relax. You should take my advice to heart more often."

"If I took your advice, I'd be out two fingers right now."

"But surely you must see the lesson in all this."

"No. What lesson?"

"You can't trust anyone but yourself—and, heck, you've proven you can't even trust yourself half the time!"

"Oh, your pessimism is corrosive! Those laurels have gone to your head, and not just literally. Let me have my youthful illusion. Let me have my teddy bear picnic and Brontosaurus, and don't tell me Love is a dirty old homeless man who pees on street corners."

"You feel ill—you said it yourself. This is nothing but the ranting of an invalid, you poor girl!"

"On the contrary. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!"

"By your reasoning, eating those eight-day-old collard greens was a good idea."

"It was an enriching life experience is what it was! And not only that—"

"You can't be serious."

"—so was the Chinese finger trap! Now that I know the secret, this time I'll get it for sure! Time me."

"All right, you've convinced me. You don't have to actually practice what you preach. After all, moderation in all things! . . . It's stuck again, isn't it?"

"I think I need to lie down."

* * *

Quatre trembles, his eyes wide in disbelief as the young men in blue drag the body away. It can't be real! Catching his own breath, Miki grabs his arm and the blood-tipped sword falls from his motionless hand. "Romeo, away, be gone," Miki urges, shaking him. "The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain. Stand not amazed, the Prince will doom thee death, if thou art taken. Hence, be gone, away."

But Quatre does not seem to hear him as he stares after the retreating men. What he has done suddenly sinks in like a knife plunged into his heart and he howls: "O I am fortune's fool!" He staggers under the guilt, under the cruelty of an ironic Fate that has taken from him what he . . . what he most . . .

Miki grips his shoulders, turning the young man to face him. "Why dost thou stay?"

And Quatre turns wet eyes to his, which burn with that same question, with wild desperation as he searches Miki's like a man who has found himself suddenly without memory.

* * *

•

* * *

_Slap!_

The thin book landed in the middle of the wooden desk, signaling the students to momentary, anticipatory silence.

"We'll stop there and pick up again next time," the professor said, cuing the after-class rabble—the sounds of books being shut and chairs being pushed away from desks. "Well done, you four, I commend you on such enthusiastic performances. And one last thing: I want to remind everyone the drama club is holding auditions for its next production, and I strongly encourage you to try out. There are few things in life more satisfying than being on the stage."

Quatre closed his book slowly. He heard someone compliment him on giving her chills with his reading, and looked up briefly when Miki smiled and patted him on the shoulder on his way past his desk. Collecting his things, he glanced over at Trowa, sitting two aisles away, ready to flash a sympathetic smile. But it dropped as he saw that Trowa was immersed in his notes, as though nothing had passed between them. As though Quatre didn't exist.

"'I commend you on such an en-_thu_-siastic per-_for_-mance,'" came Dorothy's sarcastic voice at his ear and he turned. "You make Relena's Juliet look like President Une. I tip my hat to you, sir." She bowed with flourish.

"Oh, that's cold," said Relena, coming up next to her, and Dorothy laughed. "My point exactly."

Relena let out a deep sigh. "Well, I guess I'll just have to try harder."

"Think of Heero next time: The _love_ scene's coming up," Dorothy purred, causing the other girl to blush furiously and elbow her.

"I think you do a fine job," Quatre said. "Are you going to try out for the play?"

"I'd love to," Relena said with a shrug, "but who has time?"

"Who cares?" Dorothy threw an arm around her shoulders. "Are you guys hungry or what? Let's get some lunch."

* * *

**Chapter notes:** For this part, I thought it time to bring in the Shadow Girls. For those who may be unfamiliar with Utena, they are two girls, A-ko and B-ko in the series, who appear only as shadows on a wall during sunset and engage in rather random, obscure skits that usually have some hidden relevance to the theme of the episode. The look is somewhat like Javanese shadow theater. The first line of their dialog here is the first line of Plato's "Symposium," the collard greens schtick was inspired by an episode of _Sanford and Son_, but the rest is original.

The dialog for the four major characters is, of course, from William Shakespeare's _Romeo and Juliet_, Act III Scene One.


	6. 

In the student council's private rose garden, the air was humid and heavy with the perfume of dozens of different kinds of roses mingling together. It wasn't that Quatre hated the smell, however overpowering it was, but it always struck him as a biting scent, the scent of something old and powerful. Something eternal, despite the ephemerality of the blossoms themselves.

He didn't care enough to try to discern the different breeds, but he had to admit there was something about those peculiar blue-dusted white roses Anthy Himemiya loved so much that stood apart. Something softer. Disarming. Unnerving. That was Ohtori's magic spell. That was what no one could resist.

It was what made resisting so difficult for him.

She stood with her back to him, trimming the wilting, pink-tipped yellow blossoms from one plant. If there was any one thing about her that stood out in Quatre's mind, it was her predictability. It was an endearing quality that at the same time made him feel sorry for her, trapped in this world of hers like a bird in a cage. . . .

No, this was not his problem. He tried to push those feelings of sentimentality from his mind when he went to confront her. It would be enough of a struggle without distractions like that. She's just an ordinary girl, he tried to convince himself; she needs neither winning nor rescuing.

"Excuse me, Himemiya," he began.

She turned to him, a serene smile on her lips and in her green eyes. "Upperclassman Winner," she said cordially and went back to her trimming, turning herself towards him so as not to seem rude—though there was nearly nothing she could do in his mind to seem so. "What do you think of this Gold Medal?" she said, cupping one of the blossoms in her hand so he could better see. "It's a striking color, isn't it?"

"Uh, yes," he stammered. It never ceased to fascinate him how this shy girl could draw him into any subject. Or destroy his momentum.

"I have a Quatre Saisons in here also. 'Four Seasons.' I thought you might find that amusing. Do you know it first grew at the shrine of Aphrodite on Samos, three thousand years ago? Too bad this little one hasn't been feeling well lately. Must be a reaction to this heat." She contemplated the golden flowers for a moment in silence, so that it startled him a little when she said nonchalantly, "President Touga's not here, if that's who you were looking for."

"Actually," he said with caution, "I came to see you."

She stopped clipping, though her eyes remained focused on the roses.

"About the duel this Friday."

When he said nothing else, she looked up and met his eyes. "Yes?" Her movements were so graceful, her manner so unaffectedly pleasant that it was easy to see why she was so precious to the school and its students. It made him feel guilty to be left alone with her in the little forest of potted roses. Even though, on some level he would not have been able to explain, he felt he had more to worry about from her than the other way around.

"I suppose you'll be wanting to make an official challenge to Miss Utena soon?" The regret, barely perceptible in her voice, jolted him back to the decision that had started to slip from him the moment he set foot in the greenhouse.

Now he was able to reply with conviction: "No. It's not that at all. I thought you might like to know that I refused the invitation."

Her smile dropped. She truly had not expected his answer.

"Refused?" she asked, as though the word was foreign to her. "I don't understand. You still have the seal?"

He showed her. "Touga said I should keep it, since it was a gift."

"Then . . ." Her smile returned, albeit tainted with doubt. "But it's impossible that anyone would refuse. That is, why would anyone want to be a member of the student council if not for a chance to revolutionize the world? If . . . If not for the Rose Bride . . .?"

He did feel sorry for her.

* * *

It had been typical of Trowa these last few days to glance at the rose garden as he walked by on his way to and from classes. It continued to hold a certain mystery for him, that little piece of Eden under glass, and he couldn't help but wonder why its visitors were restricted to members of the student council. His character rebelled against the elitism that kept him from finding out. He would always see that dark girl in there, who had spoken to him in passing last Friday afternoon, watering and trimming the roses that filled the little greenhouse like a jungle.

Today what he saw stopped him in his tracks. Today she wasn't alone.

Quatre stood beside her, leaning against a worktable as he spoke to her, hands in his pockets in an otherwise casual gesture that belied his anxiety. Trowa watched his lips move, lips he had watched a thousand times before, studied even, but he couldn't understand a word of what passed between them. Quatre was wearing his usual easy smile, but his eyes, the slant of his eyebrows, seemed solemn and serious. His gaze affectionate. The girl returned it, if with some hesitation, and Trowa found that old pang of jealousy ringing inside him again. Only this time its meaning wasn't so clear-cut.

Something moved out of the corner of his eye. A familiar voice said, "Oh, it's you. I thought you were Utena for a moment."

He looked over to see Wakaba coming to join him at the window. She seemed disappointed to see him, and explained: "You looked like her, just now, standing here. —I mean, just that expression! Not that you look _that_much like her from behind—I-I mean, not that I was studying you from behind or anything!"

At Wakaba's furious blush, he smiled. Suddenly her eyes grew wide. "Triton," she exclaimed, "I'm so sorry! I heard what happened between you and Juri."

He touched his cheek automatically, feeling the remaining tenderness of a fading bruise, no doubt the focus of her attention. In this school, no detail in your appearance went unnoticed, not least if you happened to be a mysterious and attractive newcomer. "Why are you sorry?"

"Because I should have warned you about her!" Wakaba put her hands on her hips, giving him a chastising glare. "Some students call her the Prince, or the Beautiful Leopard—but I guess you hadn't heard about that beforehand. Anyway, you have to be careful around Juri. Even the staff keeps their distance. You can't just waltz up and start putting the moves on her like she was any other girl, no sir, 'cause there'll be consequences to face, my friend!"

He resisted the urge to grin at her mock-lecture. "Consequences."

"Damn right!" She nodded. "You may not think I'm serious, but I am. Totally. Don't mess around with Juri. Any more, I mean."

"Well, I think I learned my lesson," Trowa said, and turned his gaze back to the greenhouse.

Wakaba mumbled something about how she should have told him sooner—"Mother always said I'm too little too late"—as Quatre looked down at his left hand below them. Trowa watched as he began to pry the rose seal from his own finger. Beside him, the dark girl's eyes widened with . . . what was it? Fear? Contrition? Gentleness, at least. She caught his hand, and her mouth moved as she seemed to plead with him. Quatre was still as he listened, then reluctantly slid the ring back into place. Just what had transpired between them, Trowa had no idea, and it bothered him.

"What are you looking at?" Wakaba asked, leaning over. When she saw, she grumbled, "Oh. Déjà vu."

He glanced at her inquisitively.

"Don't get me wrong," she said. "Himemiya's actually a pretty nice girl once you get to know her."

"Himemiya."

"Anthy Himemiya." Wakaba sighed. "Yep, she's a conundrum, all right. She can be all sweetness and light to your face, but then you can always tell she's hiding something. I don't get it, but everyone here either loves her or loves to hate her. It seems Quatre's hooked anyway." Then she started. "Don't tell me you too—"

"Why?" he asked nonchalantly. "If I was, you wouldn't be jealous."

"Well, I . . . No. . . . But . . ."

She tripped over her words, but when she saw him break into a shy smile and realized he was only giving her a bad time—he had a strange sense of humor, this new guy—she turned her back on him.

But she couldn't hide her smile completely when she blurted out, "Oh, you wouldn't understand anyway!"

* * *

It had taken a bit of repetition to make Himemiya understand—and to reassure Quatre himself—he had no ulterior motives for his decision. But when she at last understood and was satisfied with his explanation, she seemed to breathe a little easier, to glow a little brighter. Her relief mirrored his own, and only made him more confident in his decision. Now that the words were out in the open, he couldn't very well go back on them. He could only ask for her confidentiality.

Hurried footsteps and hurried breathing sounded behind them.

"Miss Utena," Himemiya said, happy to see her friend and champion. Quatre wasn't sure if the tone of relief he heard in her voice was his imagination. He turned to the girl with the pink hair, prepared to disarm the situation with an appropriately apologetic greeting, but she wouldn't let him get a word out.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded to know. Her chest rose and fell quickly beneath the boy's uniform. Suspicion crossed her blue eyes. There was no love between them, but no hate either, and even though Quatre was her senior he was reluctant to keep anything less than a wary distance from Utena Tenjou. There was something about her character, her stubbornness perhaps, that, while admirable, bothered him on a personal level. Though he would never admit it aloud, in some ways they were too similar for his comfort.

"Nothing you need to worry about," he assured her.

"I think I have a right to know!" And Quatre had to acknowledge that as her right. Because he was here. Alone. With Himemiya. Utena was not only engaged to the other girl under the laws of the school's duelists—an unintentional formality—but considered herself Himemiya's best friend also. How could she not be on the defensive when an older boy walked in alone on the scene, given what had happened in the past with Saionji? And on top of it all, "I saw you two—"

"It's all right, Miss Utena," Himemiya said. Her tender, nonchalant tone put a quick end to hostilities. "Quatre was simply informing me of his decision. That's all."

"Decision?" Apparently that was not what exactly what Utena had expected.

Quatre took a deep breath. "I've decided I'm not going to challenge you for Himemiya's hand." At that revelation, Utena lowered her eyes, but it was he who felt sorry. It was in his nature. "I'm refusing the order to duel."

"Sure, for now—"

"For ever," he snapped. His tone surprised them all. He hadn't meant to be so adamant, though he realized it had been intended more for himself than the girls. "I mean it. I've made up my mind."

Utena still looked skeptical. Himemiya looked down at her hands. "You have to understand," the former told him, "that I've heard all that before. I don't like it when people make promises they can't keep."

"Neither do I. Which is why I intend to keep it." Quatre crossed his arms. "I've given this a lot of thought, and I've come to the conclusion that if I go into the duel with the intent to lose on purpose, that wouldn't be fair to either of us and would only be a waste of time. And then there's a possiblity I _could_win. That wouldn't be right."

He shook his head, and when he looked up again, caught Utena's eyes, hoping that if she still didn't believe him, she would at least see the sense of his argument. "People who don't want the prize shouldn't be fighting for it in the first place. I know I can't expect you to believe me, with no other proof than my word. All I can do is swear. I tried to give Himemiya my ring, but she wouldn't allow me. She has more trust in my self-restraint than I do."

Utena looked at her friend to confirm this was true. Himemiya's faith in Quatre, in his humanity with all its virtues and vices, seemed too great for someone of her years and humble, unassuming nature.

Utena said quietly: "Thank you."

It took Quatre quite aback. "Huh?"

"For explaining everything to Himemiya." Utena was blushing slightly, perhaps betraying the pride that would not allow her to apologize for jumping to conclusions, or else to thank him for her own selfish reasons. She frowned grudgingly. "That was considerate of you."

"I was just doing what I thought was right. I won't intrude anymore."

He was about to leave when Himemiya pushed something cold and earthy into his hands. He hadn't been paying attention and he flinched instinctively to avoid the thorns and slightly fruity scent. The sickly Gold Medal bush. He blushed as he stammered, "W-what do you want me to do with this?" It wasn't a big plant, but holding it away from himself as he did, he had to turn to the side to see her.

"Take care of it," Himemiya said simply.

Utena was looking between them strangely.

"Himemiya. I can't accept this," Quatre told her with a sigh, but his refusal was half-hearted at best. He knew there was no arguing with Anthy Himemiya. "I mean," he amended, "do you really think you should trust me with a sick plant? I don't know the first thing about caring for roses."

She just smiled at his childish tone. He didn't look away from her face, but he had the feeling Utena was trying not to laugh at him. "It just needs a watering every morning and a dry sunny spot until the weather changes," Himemiya said. "Don't worry. You can't kill it."

He didn't say another word about it, and the three made their way outside together. It was still early in the afternoon, and the courtyard was bright around them, the sunlight flashing off the light-colored uniforms of the passersby, except for one band of shadow.

It was from that direction that he saw Trowa coming toward them, the girl who had cheered him on at the baseball field hanging on his arm.

It was Wednesday. Two days since Quatre first noticed the faint bruise on Trowa's cheek left by Juri's ring.

At first he had relished the sight: Trowa had gotten what he deserved for pulling a stunt like that. But the satisfaction faded quickly as he came to understand that the injury was just as much his own, revenge for the cut he had given his old friend in their duel. It was a painful reminder of how Trowa had received it, a tangible sign that any chance they might have had to return to the past was slowly being smothered with each passing day by their own hands. If Trowa still held any interest in him, it was only to see him suffer. This latest act proved it.

Little did he know the same accusation was running through Trowa's mind.

They had no words to say to each other—none within reach, that is, though the thought did cross their minds that even to acknowledge the other verbally would give away too much. Like pressure building underground, the truth was just waiting for a crack to open and allow it to burst forth with cataclysmic consequences. They feared taking responsibility for what might happen then, and, locked in that silent gaze, thought it safest to leave things as they were indefinitely.

Beside them, the girls greeted each other, oblivious to the tension.

"Hey, Wakaba. Sorry I missed you after class." In the shadow of the two boys, Utena cracked an awkward smile.

"That's all right. I was just heading off to track, so I thought I'd say hi." The girl had unlatched herself from Trowa's arm in her true love's presence.

Utena asked hopefully: "How'd you do on the biology quiz?"

"Not as well as I'd hoped. Got a ninety-two."

"That's still better than mine!"

"Mine too," Himemiya added. "You're so lucky."

"If you want, I could help you guys with corrections. Want to meet for lunch tomorrow, the three of us?"

The incongruity of Trowa's cold, scrutinizing gaze and the girls' cordiality was almost too much for Quatre; the only thing he could think of that was harder than walking away from it was standing there in silence. He turned his eyes away and brushed past his friend.

Shame welled up inside him, went to his cheeks—shame for taking the coward's way out, for being too weak to face his own fears. How many times had he proclaimed himself a problem-solver, and now he was just running away? Again? The distance to the edge of the courtyard seemed unusually long then. With students lounging in the sunny patches of lawn on either side of him, he felt he was running the gauntlet.

He saw Nanami, that seventh-grade girl who reminded him curiously of Dorothy when she was younger, waiting under the colonnade with her entourage, and prayed to himself that he could escape past her and back to his dorm undetected. As just had to be the case, however, he was mere steps from safety when she chanced to see him and, breaking away from her fellows, trotted over.

"I've been looking for you, Quatre." He wasn't fooled for a moment by her innocent tone. It only indicated to him that she had some design in mind for the impending conversation's progress, but that was thrown out the window when she saw the roses. "What are you doing with _those_?"

"Himemiya told me to take care of them." He said the words with as much enthusiasm as someone reading from a cue card. "So that's what I'm doing."

"Himemiya?" Nanami could no longer hide the disdain and suspicion from her voice. "Is that why you stood me up last Friday?"

Quatre started. He had completely forgotten. Last Friday he had promised to tutor her in music as a favor to Touga. The way she said it made it sound like a date, and he hoped no one had overheard. Why she had to blow everything out of proportion he didn't understand, especially since her strange affection for her brother was well known throughout the student body.

Normally he would have felt bad for forgetting, but oddly enough, he only felt a twinge of retrospective relief. "Something . . . personal came up," he told her. He thought that would be a sufficient explanation, if she had heard any of the gossip about him and Trowa in the last few days.

Instead, her large blue eyes narrowed viciously under her pale brow. "Something personal?"

"It has nothing to do with you or . . . or any of this."

"What are you talking about?" she said. "Don't play games with me. I'm not blind. You're going behind the student council's back, aren't you? I saw you talking with Himemiya just now. I know you're hiding something from me and big brother—"

Her hands shot out to his left arm. Thinking she was going for his rose seal, he panicked. He pulled away from her, and as he did so lost his grip on the clay pot balanced in his arms. He caught it again with room to spare, but his book bag fell open on the brick pathway in its place.

A thin book bound in rich Moroccan red leather slipped out from among the notebooks in all the commotion. Just a book, but Quatre felt an instinctual desire to hide it. Maybe it would mean less than nothing to anyone else, but to Quatre, seeing it exposed like that was like being suddenly stripped naked before the other students. He blushed as he detached a thorny stem from the material of his uniform.

Nanami gaped at him, but for all the wrong reasons. She glared at the rescued roses with clear, unadulterated envy. She took no notice of the spilled books.

He knelt, setting the pot down gently beside him, and pushed his books back into the bag. Nanami made no move to help him, just uttered a shocked, "Quatre—"

"Leave me alone, would you?" he muttered.

"Quatre, what's gotten into you—"

"Leave me alone, I said!"

He stood and saw the hurt on her face. This wasn't like him, that look said, and he knew it. Yet this time, he found it strangely gratifying to see his own pain mirrored in someone else's eyes. Especially someone like Nanami. "If you're so worried about me and Himemiya, go ask your brother about it. He knows everything that happens at this bloody school."

Nanami opened her mouth and closed it again. Was she going to cry? This girl who had no problem stomping on others nearly cracked under a harsh tone of voice. It was embarrassing to watch.

"Quatre?"

Juri approached them. She didn't acknowledge the other girl, nor did Nanami her. And Quatre was unsure whether to be thankful for the interruption when the fencing captain said, "I was hoping you might be able to spare a minute."

"I'm really not in the mood right now." He tried to fake a smile. Here was the young woman who had kissed the boy he had loved—however against her will—and he didn't know how to act toward her at all.

Juri crossed her arms. "That's too bad," she said, "because I have a proposition to make. And . . . Damn it all. I owe you an apology."

"An apology?"

"I thought you'd like to take your time and enjoy it."

Quatre hefted his book bag over his shoulder, his quarrels with Nanami and Trowa momentarily forgotten. Through Juri's typical aura of lofty impudence was a shade of empathy: She had been beaten as well. And what she set before him now, waiting for his acknowledgement, was rarer than diamonds. Of course Quatre was intrigued. "For what?"

"For treating you the way I did Saturday." She tried unsuccessfully to prevent a sudden smile. "I would have reacted with better judgment if I'd known your friend was such a jerk."

* * *

Trowa wasn't paying much attention to the girls. When Quatre walked by, his eyes averted, not a word in passing, Trowa would not allow himself to turn and watch him, to physically acknowledge the pang of sentimentality he had come here to quell.

But he continued to think of his old friend, to wonder what he was feeling. Jealousy? Defeat? There was a time only days ago when Trowa wanted nothing more than to turn the tables, to make Quatre feel the way he had all those years before. Now he wasn't so sure. He hadn't expected victory to hurt like this.

He didn't realize that Wakaba was jogging away and waving to the three of them. He didn't realize that he was standing facing Utena and Anthy Himemiya and staring into space. "Oh. Hey, you're still here?" Utena said to him, and for a moment he could only look at her blankly. He knew he must have looked foolish, or even ill. He noticed the rose seal on her left hand and felt a sense of momentary panic. Despite Juri's insistence he wear it with pride, he found he wanted neither of them to spot the same symbol on his finger, and quickly hid his hand in his pocket.

Himemiya's face lit up when she recognized him. "Why, Upperclassman Triton Bloom, my pod buddy."

Utena looked at her quizzically. "'Pod buddy'?"

Himemiya nodded. "We're two peas in a pod. Isn't that right, Mr. Bloom?"

There was something about her that didn't fail to lighten his spirits. Her radiance—or her resemblance to Cathrine, perhaps, that made him feel so comfortable around her. At the mention of that private joke, Trowa felt his gloom slowly begin to melt away. "That's right," he said. "We incurable daydreamers have to stick together."

There was no way for him to know the complex nature of the two girls' relationship, so it was easy for him to miss Utena's wary, almost envious glance when she said, "You guys are weird.

"Himemiya," she quickly changed the subject, "we should probably head over to the library and see if we can't find some of the answers to that quiz ourselves. That should save Wakaba some trouble."

Though she hid it well, she felt uncomfortable around Triton Bloom now that she had seen him in a different light, first in his duel with Quatre, and now being so familiar with Himemiya. When had they met before? She regretted now the way she'd welcomed him at their first encounter, when he had seemed so removed from her world, never to interfere—when she had invited him into it thinking he would never take her up on the offer.

But now, after the events of the last several days, he seemed like two different people, and she wasn't sure she liked the new one. Now she made excuses to get away. It was in that vein that she mumbled, "I hate biology."

"You need help with biology?" he asked. "I'm free. I could go over it with you, if you'd like."

"Thanks, but we'll manage," Utena said.

Unfortunately, Himemiya said at the same time, "Would you? How nice."

It was to Utena that Trowa looked for a tie-breaker. "It's up to you," he said, "but I could save you a lot of time. I'm a biology ace." He said this dryly, unboastfully, stating it as a simple fact. Patiently waiting for her to accept his offer.

Utena had no choice but to give in. For practical reasons, and because Himemiya would be disappointed if she refused, she told herself, and Utena kept telling her she should make more friends. But underneath was a more personal eagerness she couldn't put her finger on. If nothing else, she supposed, she should know what she was up against. Pod buddies. . . .

The three of them went back to the East Hall—this time not by accident on Trowa's part—and spread their homework out on one of the long dining tables where they could study by the natural light. Himemiya made them a pot of Darjeeling and brought out a plate of crackers and strawberries, while Trowa explained cellular reproduction, alleles and chance. He had a way of making the subject interesting and easy to understand, and as the girls made their corrections, Utena forgot about her earlier wariness, dismissing it as a byproduct of her conversation with Quatre. Maybe it was a good thing Triton had come over after all.

"You know, you could teach this stuff," she told him.

He just looked down humbly at the table in front of him, where Himemiya's monkey friend Chu-Chu sat munching on a tea cracker. Under his long lashes, Triton's eyes were like two deep green ponds. Surely she was worrying for nothing. It was difficult to believe this timid boy could be at all dangerous.

She leaned her chin on her hand. Struck by curiosity, she asked, "So what brought you to Ohtori in the first place?"

Trowa looked up. He was glad now that he had slipped the ring off his finger on the way over; he didn't know what kind of conclusions the girls would have drawn if they had seen it. Namely Utena, who was clearly a duelist herself. Something told him that revelation would not have gone over well.

"Quatre got me interested." It was partly the truth, and that was enough. "He said this was such a great school, and I figured, since my grades were just as good as his, why not give it a shot myself?"

"I guess that's as good a reason as any," Utena said with a sympathetic smile.

"You two are good friends, aren't you?" Himemiya asked. "You and Upperclassman Quatre."

The innocent and unexpected nature of her question caught him off guard. Trowa nodded vaguely after a moment as he sipped the tea. "Were, in any case."

She tilted her head. "What makes you say that?"

"A difference of opinion," Trowa said.

Chu-Chu's face scrunched up from an unripe strawberry.

"Oh." Himemiya lowered her eyes. "Well, as long as you've been that honest with each other, I guess I shouldn't worry. It's just that Quatre can get so caught up in one thing, he can't concentrate on anything else until he finally resolves it. I feel bad for him sometimes. It's sad to see someone so smart holding himself back."

"Yeah, but he's past that now," Utena said.

Trowa knew they were no longer talking about the boys' friendship. He pretended he didn't see the look of warning that passed between the two girls, and Utena's discomfort with the subject of Quatre Winner. It had something to do with the conversation in the rose garden, something Trowa wasn't supposed to know though he was dying to find out. The girls would shut him out if he asked—or at least Utena would. It was none of his business. Trowa had hoped something crucial might slip out casually in conversation, but so far he remained disappointed.

"How about you?" he tried, changing the subject. When Utena turned back to him, he elaborated, "What made you choose Ohtori?"

He had assumed this would be a safe topic of conversation. Yet it only succeeded in causing her to raise her guard even more. She blushed. "Oh. No," she stammered, looking down, "it's . . . kind of personal. You'd laugh."

"I promise I won't." He smiled in encouragement. "But you know, you shouldn't have said it was a secret. I'm even more curious now."

Utena sighed. "It's kind of silly, really," she started with a shy smile. But the long, uncomfortable look she gave Himemiya indicated that wasn't her true feeling on the matter at all. Sensing her mood, Himemiya turned back to her notebook, resuming a doodle started in the margin of the page and acting as though the two weren't there.

"See, my parents died at the same time when I was little," Utena began quietly, "and it was so unexpected I didn't know what to do anymore after that. At the time, I thought it would be easier if I just died with them. But then this prince appeared and . . . I guess you could say he saved me. He told me to be brave and not give up hope, that there were so many things left to live for. He was so strong and kind that since then I've tried to be just like him, because it wouldn't be right to let all he did for me just go to waste. He gave me this," she said, gazing fondly at her ring. "Said it would lead me to him again. . . ."

"And that's what brought you here."

Still staring at the ring on her left hand, her expression might have contained an ounce of regret, or even disbelief, for all the ways her life had changed unexpectedly since she first slipped that seal on her finger. Telling him that much, it had been like sharing a dream, it was too personal. There was no way he could understand how real it had all seemed to her, when aloud it sounded like no more than a fairytale.

She felt her heart race a bit faster as Triton stared past her, and it made her self-conscious. He must have thought she was such a child. "I can't believe I just told you all that," she mumbled. What felt so true and beautiful in her heart seemed to lose something in the telling. And how could she have thought it would remain safe with such a near perfect stranger?

Not that Trowa would remember anyway. Something she had said had dumped him without a map in his own memories. The crushing weight of hopelessness abating for a few precious minutes as the sudden vacancy beside him became the opening of the black town car door and a draft of fresh air. The black suit would have made his friend look like a stranger if not for the white shirt keeping it from contacting the skin, peeking out from under his cuffs as he held open the door. _Come on, Trowa,_ was all he said out loud, but his brave face, pale and backlit by the autumn sun, his outstretched hand, promised something like salvation if Trowa could just find the strength to get up and join him.

No. It certainly wasn't silly.

Something moist hit him.

"Ah! Your jacket," Utena gasped.

"Chu-Chu!" Himemiya scolded. Trowa looked down to see what had startled him out of his reverie, and found a pink smudge on his uniform jacket. A small chewed strawberry was rolling to a stop on the floor. Chu-Chu must have kicked it at him the way Himemiya was glaring at him disapprovingly. "What's gotten into you? Since when do you treat a guest like that?"

The little monkey folded his arms behind his back and proudly stated, "Chu."

"I'm really very sorry. He's usually much better behaved."

"It's all right," Trowa said. It was actually rather funny, though he didn't quite feel like laughing.

"Let me get you something to put on that," Utena offered, and started to rise to her feet.

But Trowa pushed his chair back and stood before she could. She worried he might be offended—and after she had just spilled her past to him; what kind of second impression was she making?—and started to apologize again, but he stopped her with a sincere look. "It's all right. Really. Can I use your kitchen?"

She pointed toward the other end of the dining hall. "On your left."

He nodded his thanks and made a hasty exit.

He was able to breathe a little easier when he reached the kitchen, only then noticing how claustrophobic the other two had made him. Dabbing his jacket with a wet paper towel, he looked through the refrigerator for anything that might keep the stain from setting. Everything in it, as everything surrounding Himemiya did, had its place. Like the carefully set scene of a play. The vase of roses on the counter, or the sheet music in perfect disarray on the piano in the parlor. With only the three of them in the large building—that was, four if he included the monkey—the world felt incredibly lonely.

In Himemiya's home, where he had been made to feel he belonged, he felt incredibly lonely.

This new sense of kinship between him and Utena was hardly what he deserved. So she was one of those fighting for the mysterious Rose Bride too, he thought, wondering once again who the elusive woman—if in fact the bride was a person—could be. And as such, he might have to do battle with her in the future, if this whole ordeal with the rose seal wasn't one big mistake.

In light of that, he decided, maybe it would be best if, from now on, he kept his distance.

* * *

The sun was beginning to set as Quatre made his way back to the dorms. He had been treated that evening to a private dinner with Juri and Miki, though the affair seemed to him more like an intervention than a discussion of student council business.

"Let us help you," Juri had said. Those words sounded more than a little forced coming from her. No doubt it took quite an effort on her part. A waste, too, because he didn't want her help. "I know you don't think you need it, but let's at least talk this through. If you plan on sticking to your decision—"

"Of course I do."

"—then you should be thinking of someone to take your place on Friday." He thought he almost saw pity in her dark blue eyes, and turned away. "You only have two days left," Juri went on, "and you mean to tell me you haven't even begun to consider naming a second? Quatre, this is your responsibility. We're here if you need us, but . . . Damn it, you should be taking this seriously!"

He could feel their gazes on him, chastising him for his selfishness. But he had assumed selfishness was only natural in his situation. It was _his_duel, wasn't it? If he ended up being banned from the student council because of his actions, he knew he'd only have himself to blame.

Or was there something larger than himself riding on this, some myth about a castle in the sky no one else had ever seen? If so much more was at stake than his own fate in the council, they should have come right out and said so, told him why, instead of making it seem like his taking an active role in these games was somehow for his own good. Because that tactic was going nowhere.

"I honestly don't know anyone," he said, "who would be willing to fight for me. Why doesn't Touga just pick someone? He knows the ins and outs of this sort of thing better than anyone."

"He trusts you to make your own decision."

"Juri and I have suggested drawing lots for it if you still haven't chosen anyone by Friday," Miki said, "but only if you approve. I don't think either of us would mind a second chance to prove ourselves _too_ much." He smiled, but the falseness of it was clear to see. Like a scientist conducting a controlled experiment, Miki was more afraid of skewing fate than whether the proscribed duty was done.

"Do what you want," Quatre told them indifferently, but inside he felt undeserving of such a selfless offer. He couldn't say he would have been able to return the favor, had the tables been reversed.

"But if one of us wins . . ."

They didn't need to finish that thought. Quatre understood. If that happened, the Rose Bride would still officially be his.

Now, at sunset, the melancholy time of the day, the still cloudless sky was a fiery orange. It cast a golden, pinkish glow on the white walls of the buildings around him. A tall mural of roses rose up on his right. In this light, the cracks in the plaster almost seemed like live veins in the petals.

He turned to look up at it, the crux of Ohtori that hung over him, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. His long, gangly shadow looked back. That's right, he thought: He had left Himemiya's Gold Medal in the student council office by mistake. He would have to go back for it in the morning. Maybe by then he would be closer to a final decision, but he doubted it.

Footsteps approached. As he looked up, Quatre's hopes were torn, not knowing whether to rise or sink. It had to be Trowa, of all times. Of all places. Of course. There was no one else it could be, when Quatre needed the distraction least.

He seemed to carry himself lighter at this hour, his book bag thrown casually over his right shoulder. Lost in his own thoughts, he didn't notice Quatre at first, until he chanced to lift his eyes from the walkway.

Then he halted, as completely as though a poisonous snake had just wandered into his path. Caught off his guard, for a split second he was vulnerable. So he tore his gaze away, rebuilt his defenses. He took a few more steps toward Quatre, who hadn't moved since he spotted his old friend, but quickly realized it would be impossible to pass him by so easily. There was no third party to distract them this time, or act as their excuse.

"Trowa." Difficult as it was for him, Quatre tried to be considerate. "How's your hand?"

"Fine," Trowa said. But even as he said so he was hiding it behind his back. What had changed that he didn't want Quatre to see the wound he'd caused? What was he ashamed of?

"I'm really sorry about that."

"Don't be." It wasn't a courtesy. It was a command. "Just forget it."

With that dismissal, Quatre felt the weekend's anger flare up inside him again. He had wanted nothing more than for Trowa to recognize his sincerity.

It didn't quite come out the way he meant, however: "Damn it, Trowa, can't you let me apologize for once? Why is it nothing I say is ever good enough for you?"

"Apologize all you want," Trowa muttered, "for something that actually matters. You seem to think if you just tell me what I want to hear, everything will be all right. Do you really think I'm that naive? You're not serious."

"I _am_ serious!"

"Then come straight with me. Tell me what you really think."

His calm was impeccable. He stood before Quatre with one hand behind his back, the other tight around the handle of his book bag as though waiting for Quatre to take his best shot, literally. Like Sebastian waiting for the first arrow. He always had had a martyr streak, a need to be the victim that only made Quatre feel guilty when he did try to speak his mind.

This time he felt no obligation to pull his punches.

He forced a laugh. "You want to know what I really think? Fine. I think you're a spoiled bastard who can't be bothered to even try to think past his own problems. It's always about what _you_ need, what _you_ think is important."

"Don't stop there. Get it all off your chest."

"That's it, Trowa, that's exactly it! That sarcasm—those little self-deprecating remarks you make as if your problems were the only ones that ever mattered. Let's all feel sorry for you because nothing terrible ever happens to anyone else! Did you ever think to put yourself in my shoes, think about how _I_ feel for once? Isn't that why we're here to begin with? You act like you're the only one who ever feels lonely, or loses someone close—"

As soon as Quatre said that, he recognized the callousness of that remark; yet at the same time, he couldn't help feeling just a little bit satisfied at finally having it out. "But instead of talking to me about it like a normal person, you act like everything's just fine, when it obviously isn't, so I'll feel guilty because I'm not clairvoyant enough to guess what's wrong! Don't you get it? I couldn't take that kind of pressure anymore!"

"So you left."

Quatre sighed in frustration. "How many times do I have to tell you? It wasn't because of you."

"Then give me some reason to believe that, because so far I haven't heard any."

Quatre bit his lip. Now that he had come this far, in time and space as well as within himself, still he was reluctant to face his own reasoning. Fearful, even.

And he hated himself for it. It would have been so much easier to blame Trowa for everything, however selfish a thing it was to do. He found himself caught between half-truths, and he was never very good at lying. "You wouldn't understand."

"You're not going to tell me?"

"Who said I was obligated?" You'd be offended, he thought. "You'd hate me if I told you."

"I hate you because you won't give me a chance!" The present tense made Quatre cringe. "What, you expect me to figure it out all by myself? I can make up my own mind whether it's a stupid reason. It's still better than being left to my imagination. Tell me, Quatre. Give me that choice. I thought you trusted me that much."

"Trust has nothing to do with it."

"Then what?" Trowa asked.

Was it all in Quatre's imagination, or was Trowa taunting him? "I'm not in the mood to play that old game," he said.

Trowa raised his eyebrows. Whether in mock or genuine surprise, Quatre couldn't say anymore. "Who said it was a game?" He shook his head. He seemed almost amused. "That's right. I forgot: Everything's a game to you, isn't it? You never meant anything. By any of it. What was I, then? Just a means to an end—"

"Stop it." Quatre winced. "That's cruel."

"Is it?"

Quatre didn't know how to answer. He deserved everything that was said of him, but no matter how many times he told himself so, it still hurt to hear Trowa say it. That if anyone was cruel here, if anyone was the villain, it was Quatre. How could Trowa expect him to just accept that accusation without a fight?

"You said it wasn't for ever."

"And? Obviously it wasn't—"

"It was to me!" Trowa's eyes shot up from the pavement. And it was the flash of real injury that was more painful for Quatre to see than any amount of sarcasm or the most scathing judgment of character. "You promised you'd keep in touch. And where were those phone calls, Quatre, those letters?"

"I forgot."

"You forgot—"

"It's not like I meant to!" Quatre ran a hand through his hair. "I mean, it seemed like every time I tried to start, I couldn't do it. Like something was holding me back."

He didn't know why he didn't just apologize. That was what Trowa needed to hear—what he needed to do for himself. But he couldn't. It was the one thing he couldn't feel responsible for, no matter how much the guilt ate at him.

"There's something strange about this place, Trowa. I don't know what it is," —it must have had something to do with the duels and End of the World, but he couldn't expect Trowa to understand that, and would rather him not know of those matters at all— "I can't put my finger on it, but it makes you forget there's even a world outside the school. Heero felt it; that's why he got out. I'm sure of it. But he's stronger than I am. I don't know . . . All I can say is, it's like being in a dream I can't seem to wake up from."

He could feel the walls and columns around them. The rose mural beside them almost seemed to breathe and move like a living thing. A similar realization had hit him the first day of school but had quickly passed, written off as a figment of his imagination or the natural anxiety about settling into a new place. It had remained a looming question in the back of his mind since then, a nebulous feeling of anxiety, as though some unseen energy or being was watching him, peering into his heart and reading all the secrets he tried so hard to hide from even himself. As outlandish as it seemed, it was the only explanation that made sense as he attempted to convey his feelings to Trowa.

"A dream."

The gentle tone in which Trowa repeated his words made Quatre look up with the hope of finally finding some sympathy in his old friend's eyes, some indication Trowa had also felt what he tried to describe, even in some small way.

The gaze that met his, however, was colder than any before. "I'm used to you avoiding the truth when it's too uncomfortable," Trowa said. "The denial, even. And I always gave you the benefit of the doubt. But I know better than that now. God . . . do you realize how you sound?"

"Don't tell me you haven't felt it!"

"You can't actually expect me to believe a story like that."

"It's not a story!" Quatre said. But the downward curve of Trowa's lips showed his disappointment clearly, hinting at the betrayal he must have felt inside. To come all this way just to hear Quatre push new lies off on him.

Quatre knew enough by now to have expected such a reaction, but not at this. It was the one thing he had told the absolute truth about. "Why would I make up something like that? Look, I know I promised. But didn't you promise Duo and Wufei you'd keep in touch with them? And have you, Trowa?

"Have you written to Cathrine yet?"

The answer was a simple yes or no, but now it was Trowa who had difficulty answering. His silence only told Quatre what he already knew. They were equal in that failure without a told-you-so to exacerbate the guilt. Quatre had to admit it satisfied him a tiny bit when Trowa said, the slightest waver of doubt in his voice: "That's none of your business."

Turning his eyes resolutely away again, he seemed as if to go. But Quatre couldn't bear to see him repeat the same move he had perpetrated himself earlier that day. He caught Trowa's arm in a tight grip.

"Look," he tried, one final attempt, "you're right. All right? I broke my promise. But, damn it, just listen to me!"

There was a hint of surprise in Trowa's brows as he stared at him now. Nothing else. The muscles of his arm were completely still—like the expression on his face, giving away no more emotion.

But Quatre could feel the warmth of his skin under the uniform jacket. It had been too long since he had actually touched Trowa with his own hands—more than a year. The sensation was at once painfully familiar and yet alien, and Quatre recalled their first duel last Friday when he had not even recognized Trowa's voice. He felt bad for it all over again. He should have known right away, at the first spoken word—just by the way he was standing. . . .

Then again, this Trowa standing before him now was like a completely different person.

Quatre's fingers tightened desperately around the blue-green material. Violently. The same urge he had felt on the strip returned, the urge to hurt his old friend—if that was what it took to make him listen. If that was what it took to force them over the thin line they were treading, one way or the other. Only now Quatre held him in his bare hand rather than at swordpoint—and it almost felt the more deadly. "I know I haven't exactly been a paragon of honesty," he said, "but I'm trying to tell you the truth!"

Trowa yanked himself out of Quatre's grasp. "Then start by telling me what's going on here."

Quatre started. "About the school?" He couldn't bear to see the questions forming in his friend's blue eyes. About Himemiya and the greenhouse, about the duels. And Quatre couldn't bear the thought of having to try to answer them. How much was he going to have to lie? How much could he lie, and still protect Trowa from the truth? He couldn't explain why he held back what he did, only that it seemed important that he do so. Couldn't Trowa forgive him that much?

Slowly did his meaning dawn on Quatre.

Trowa shook his head.

"I came here because I believed in second chances," he said. "I guess I should have figured out long ago how foolish that was."

Quatre felt a painful smile creep onto his lips at that—painful because smiling was one of the last things he felt like doing. "Well, you sure picked a hell of a time to look for your second chance."

Trowa nodded slowly. "That's it, then?"

"I don't know, Trowa. Is that what you want me to say?" Quatre sighed, the endless frustrations of the day suddenly hitting him full force. It seemed in that moment, despite everything they'd said and done to one another, that they were back to square one. "Because obviously if you can't even believe in my sincerity, then how can I expect you to believe anything else I tell you?

"You shouldn't have wasted your father's money coming here," he said to Trowa's retreating back, hoping the sting of his choice of words hit home. Before adding for himself, "Maybe it was all just a big waste of time in the first place."

* * *

Nanami had been passing by when she heard the commotion. She recognized Quatre's voice, and he sounded angry enough that she thought it best not to make her presence known. But why so angry, and with whom?

She got closer, and found a vantage point where she could watch unseen. He was arguing with another boy, most likely in his class judging by their similar builds and the familiar way in which they spoke to one another. She didn't remember seeing the green-eyed boy before, so she assumed he was the new student some of her classmates had been talking about. The one who was an excellent fencer.

She couldn't catch all of what they had to say, but she caught enough to know it was a fight over someone's affections. The oppressive weight of the unsaid, the sense of betrayal, the impossibility for compromise. . . . She would never have guessed otherwise, but it seemed certain now that these two boys' friendship was being strained by the same thing—the same thing that had made Quatre forget all about her on Friday night:

They were both in love with Anthy Himemiya.

"So that's how it is," she said to herself. Everything that had happened earlier that day—the greenhouse conversation, Quatre's attitude, Juri's apology—it all made perfect sense now. She still wasn't sure what Quatre was planning, but at least she knew why. She caught the glimmer of silver on the hand of the new student, which he was protecting behind him from Quatre, and recognized it even at that distance as the rose seal.

So he was a duelist too!

Touga was on the phone when she returned home. She threw her book bag and herself onto one of the couches in the parlor and waited, listening to her older brother's lighthearted half of the conversation. He was going to be so proud of her when she told him what she had discovered. She looked forward to the smile of unadulterated appreciation he would give her—she could see it now—that had begun to seem so rare lately. Maybe he would even be grateful enough to show his gratitude with a kiss. . . .

But when he stepped into the room, a mug of coffee in his hand, and saw her, his expression was indifferent. "When did you get back?" He didn't seem very glad to see her at all, knowing she must have been there long enough to overhear his phone call.

But she began anyway as he took a seat beside her: "I thought you'd like to know, big brother, that Quatre Winner has been acting awfully strange lately. I don't just mean forgetting about our appointment last Friday. He saw Himemiya alone earlier today in the rose garden and I just know they're planning something behind your back."

She expected Touga to be surprised, but it was she who was surprised when he laughed. "Is that so?"

"You don't believe me." She felt heartbroken. "But . . . I know he thinks he's in love with her and he's going to try something. I'm sorry I can't be more specific. I just had to warn you. He's been acting so secretive and distracted lately."

"Of course, he has," Touga told her in a tone that said she should have known better. "He was supposed to duel for the Rose Bride this Friday. He probably didn't think it was any of your business, and I can't say I blame him. I don't know about him being in love with her. . . ." He shrugged.

"She gave him roses!"

"Himemiya gives anyone roses. But it doesn't matter anyway, because he's refused to duel."

Nanami blinked. "Huh? Can he do that?"

"No problem," said Touga, raising the mug to his lips. "The problem is finding someone to take his place on Friday."

"Like a second?" He nodded slightly as he drank. "So who's going to be fighting in his place? Juri?" She had spoken to Quatre before the argument, after all. Maybe it was to offer herself as his stand-in. Nanami remembered the other boy she had seen with Quatre and the seal on his finger. No one had mentioned him to her yet, but that didn't mean they didn't know about him. Did it? "Is there another duelist?"

"It's up to Quatre to decide, but I don't think he realizes how important it is that he does so. So, to answer your question, no one yet." He fixed her with a scrutinizing gaze. "What did you mean by another duelist?" He paused. "Is there something you wanted to tell me?"

She had wanted to, but now she wasn't so sure—now that she knew Touga wasn't aware of the other ring or its bearer. "No," she said innocently.

Touga knew her well enough to know when she was keeping something from him, but he didn't bother to refute her. Instead he said, "Anyway, it's between him and the student council. Promise me you'll stay out of it. I'm serious," he said when she started to open her mouth. "I don't want you trying to fix things for Quatre. This is his affair. If he wants help, he'll ask for it.

"Do you understand, Nanami?" he said, annunciating those three words so she would grasp his meaning.

She was about to say she promised, but the instinct not to lie to her big brother stopped her from doing so. "Understood," she said instead.

That satisfied Touga, who patted her knee indifferently and rose to go to the kitchen.

* * *

The pages of the notebook crumpled under Quatre's left hand. He leaned his temple on his right and sighed. He had read the same problem through a dozen times and still had no idea what it was about. Each time he tried to make sense of the figures, his focus shifted unintentionally back to Trowa. Trowa, Trowa, Trowa. He was getting absolutely nowhere.

"Damn it!" he hissed and pitched his eraser across the room with everything he had. It seemed like the safest thing he could destroy at that moment, and not regret it later.

He ran his fingers through his damp bangs, slumping over the oak desk. He gave up. He had finally got it all out in the open, all the frustration that had been eating at him for the past two years, and it only made him feel worse. And, on top of it all, was going to fail his math assignment. There was something funny about that, but he wasn't in the mood to appreciate it.

The air in the room was stuffy, and even with the window open there was no circulation, the oppressive heat continuing into the night. Quatre's uniform jacket lay draped over the end of the bed—he was embarrassed that he had nearly torn the clasps off in his frustration earlier. He had put on a light cotton shirt, but even that stuck uncomfortably to his back. This must be my punishment, he thought, for betraying a friend. I can't say I don't deserve it. But I wonder if I'm not the only one suffering.

Into that atmosphere, the first strains of a familiar violin concerto drifted. Quatre could hardly believe his luck; it seemed to be rather conspiring against him these last few days. Somehow, without his trying, the eraser must have hit the right button on his stereo.

Or perhaps it was this haunted school, working its voodoo again. Throwing this new curve ball at him when he needed it least.

It was a quick piece, played _martellato_, with sharp attacks and deft trills. He closed his eyes and tried to abandon his troubles to the melody, imagining the feeling of playing the piece. The vibration under his fingers. The friction of the bow. Like a duelist, the violin went back and forth across the scale, across its own path. Unwittingly his thoughts traveled back to the argument, and to how he had wanted so badly to force Trowa to recognize the guilt he'd carried with him these past months. And the resentment he had carried for years. To feel in his bones the very real pain it all caused Quatre, before sinking into the lowest depths of their defeat, together.

_Then_ Quatre would finally be justified. _Then_ he would truly be deserving of everyone's disappointment. But he had hesitated to deal that killing blow, held back too much, said things he hadn't meant, and not the things he'd meant to, and now he was too late to claim that satisfaction.

The recording hit a poignant note.

He had only wounded himself. There was no one else he could blame for that.


	7. 

**Author note:** Returning to flashbacks and first-person, and this time it's Quatre's turn, with the Shadow Girls to act as his chorus.

* * *

A strange sense of relief flowed through him the moment he hit the mattress. It seemed to hold him as he curled on his side. How nice it would be, he thought as his cheek lay against the momentarily cool sheets, if he could just melt away like that. After all he had done to dig himself deeper into his hole, if he could just leave it all behind in the morning like a dream.

Something tickled his cheek, though, and he was reminded this was no dream. It continued to roll, wetting the sheet underneath him, and then another drop, hot but refreshingly clear, ran down over his nose. Tears, he realized with detached, matter-of-fact clarity. He hadn't realized how much his stomach hurt until now, and he brought his knees up, wrapped his arms tightly around himself. He felt like he was going to be sick, but it was nothing he had eaten. It was a sharp pain that seemed to start in the very center of his body. It was so difficult to breathe.

Or rather, he found, if he breathed the sob that lay waiting in the back of his throat would come out and give him away. He hadn't cried in four years. The experience was foreign to him again, uncertain and dreaded. He was a stronger person now, and certainly wasn't going to start all over again over something as petty as this.

A choked whimper escaped him, and he knew he wouldn't win.

* * *

•

* * *

_"Sir—dear sir—why do you lie there so pathetic on your bed?" _

_"Why do you clutch you side so? Why do tears wet your pillow so?  
Don't you know grown boys don't cry?" _

_"What is it that plagues you so? Sir—dear sir—tell us what." _

_"Sir—dear sir—tell us why."_

I can't tell you, I'm afraid, only that I wish I could die.

_"To join someone recently departed from us?"_

If only it were that simple, perhaps my heart wouldn't hurt the way it does.

_"Is it terminal, this disease? Is it contagious?" _

_"Have you been stabbed? Assaulted? I see no blood.  
Or is it hunger that makes you act so wretched?"_

Hunger . . . I suppose, but not for food.

_"Then why, dear sir, do you suffer so? Tell us why."_

So, you're determined to have it out of me.  
What should I do? If I tell you, perhaps it will help ease some of this ache  
To have gotten out what I want to say, even if you can find in your hearts no sympathy.  
But if I tell you, tomorrow I will hear my same words whispered in girls' ears  
And meet with the boys' hostility everywhere—'You've deceived us.'  
If I tell you, you'll just make fun of me—but I guess I can stand that  
If you promise what I say never leaves this room.

_"We promise, cross our hearts and hope to die. Stick a needle in our eyes." _

_"We won't tell. Just tell us, sir, tell us why."_

Because my dearest friend, whom I love most in all the world  
Hates me.

* * *

You see, he was the boy down the street, the person I had always admired most, my best friend since elementary school. My everything—at one time, at least. Our parents were, while I wouldn't say friends, on good terms, if not the same social standing. Their relationship was mutually beneficial, and so they encouraged ours, mine and his, with sleepovers, with model trains and rockets, and trips to the zoo. Things boys of ten like to do.

Then one day, in the year following his mother's death, I kissed him on the lips as a joke. We were alone in my house—as it seems we often found ourselves—and sneaking a sip of father's Bordeaux. To my surprise, he kissed me back. But he was serious.

We were never the same after that.

* * *

It was nearing the date for the district's fencing tournament, and a crowd had gathered in the gym to watch the club practice. Quatre heard them applauding as Dorothy scored a touch in Quatre's side with apparent ease. "_C'est la guerre_," she teased with her throaty laugh. "I believe that's what you would say."

They took off their masks and shook hands, and Quatre acquiesced with a short chuckle of his own, "You've got me there." Then together they moved toward the sidelines, passing Heero and Trowa, engaged in their own bout, along the way.

At the bleachers, they were accosted by a gaggle of seventh-grade girls, who giggled as they cautiously approached. "Hey, Quatre," called one of the bolder ones with a rather wide grin on her face, and his futile hopes that they might have been Dorothy's fans instead came to a crashing halt. "Maria wanted to ask you something."

The girl in question blushed furiously and stammered, "I did not," while her friends relentlessly prodded her on. Beside him, he heard Dorothy sigh with exaggerated impatience. "All right, fine," said the one who had first spoken up. "I'll ask him. You're a friend of Heero's, right?" she asked Quatre.

"Yeah," he said. "What's up?"

"Well, Maria here was just wondering—" And here Maria turned such a bright shade of red that Quatre almost worried she might explode. "—if you would know if Heero already had a date for the Spring Ball. . . ."

"As a matter of fact, he does," Dorothy answered for him over his shoulder. Her look was indignant, but he knew she enjoyed giving the girls a hard time. She would laugh about it when they had left and insist they had never been like that when they were in the seventh grade. "He's going with Relena." Quatre could tell she was jealous, though that was no excuse to take her disappointments out on him. She grinned and pointed her thumb at him. "Quatre on the other hand . . ."

The girls' hopes skyrocketed before they even had time to sink. "_You mean you haven't asked anyone yet?_" A dozen twinkling eyes turned on him, no longer pretending they had really come to hear about Heero.

"Ah . . . no," Quatre said as he gave Dorothy a dark look. If he had played his cards right, he could have gotten away without saying anything. Think up something, quick. He decided to go for the riposte. "Because I was going to ask Dorothy."

Blocked! Her expression told him right off she wasn't even going to play along; he was on his own. "Waiting for the right moment, I suppose? Well, I'm sorry to break it to you like this, in front of everyone," she said, "but I'm going with Wufei Chang."

"No, you're not! When did he ask you?"

"He hasn't. But I was going to go ask him right about now."

She flashed Quatre a triumphant smile, and the seventh-graders sniggered at his rejection. Now Dorothy was just being cruel, and she knew it. In fact, it was just her style to say something like that to see if it would aggravate him in front of the others. Or maybe it was to see how fast he could think on his feet. But his instincts kept him from doing anything but smiling unaffectedly. She shrugged.

But to soften the blow, she added quietly, "Hey. All's fair in love and war. Wufei!" Wufei looked up from where he was tying his shoelaces. "Wanna spar?"

He snorted, and taking that as an affirmative, Dorothy left Quatre all alone.

On second though, not alone at all. Alone would have been a godsend.

"I can't believe you don't have a date yet," one of the girls beside him said—as though to herself, as if that fooled anyone.

"Yeah, someone as popular as you," said another.

"You must at least have someone in mind."

He did. That person was fencing with Heero just a few yards in front of them. He wondered about what Dorothy had said to him just before taking off after Wufei. Was that a piece of advice? Should he tell them he couldn't take anyone because of how he felt about Trowa?

But when he was confronted with the prospect of doing so, his heart leapt into his throat and his mouth refused to work. A defensive instinct. What was he afraid of? He told himself it wasn't shame that kept him quiet. At worst they would be disgusted with him if they knew and stop bothering him with silly questions about his availability—which would be a relief, come to think of it. But was it really worth the tradeoff?

Was it worth giving up something that felt so sacred?

"I heard Sylvia Noventa was going with Walker—even though he's two grades ahead of her and they have, like, nothing in common."

He smiled. Was that a hint?

"Well, she _is_ in advanced Italian. . . ."

"Come on, Quatre!" said the first girl with a flirty laugh, leaning toward him. He swore she was loud enough for half the gym to hear. "Give us an idea so we'll know whether to keep our options open. You aren't taken yet, are you?"

A loud squeak startled them.

Trowa had lost his balance halfway through a lunge and nearly fallen on his face. His fumble allowed Heero a chance to score against him, but it was half-heartedly and with some visible concern for his opponent. When Quatre looked his way, Trowa had already turned away and was nodding his reassurance to Heero; but even despite the opaque mask, Quatre could sense his mood, and could see the guarded, troubled look in his friend's eyes in his mind as clearly as though there was no mesh to hide it. He had seen it a hundred times before. Trowa wasn't deaf.

The girls laughed.

"What a klutz."

"Yeah . . . but he is really cute. Maybe Maria should ask _him_ out."

"Yeah, right. He'd probably say he was too busy studying or something to go. Anyway, I don't think he cares much about girls. . . ."

Quatre hated them then. They didn't know what they were saying, it was just careless teenage girls' banter, but he hated them nonetheless. Their mocking tone cut him to the bone, as though it had been meant for him by association. He felt terrible for Trowa, whether he hadn't heard or, worse, if he had. He should have done something, for his friend's sake. He should have told them off. He should have told them that they were wrong about Trowa, and he, Quatre, should know. He should have gotten up and left them without another word so they knew exactly how much he appreciated their attitude. They would have deserved it a hundred times over.

But he didn't. And because of that, he loathed himself.

"Are you coming to watch the tournament next week?" he said kindly instead, desperate to change the subject.

It worked, and the girls were soon talking about fencing—though they knew next to nothing about the sport other than that they liked to see him and some of the other boys doing it. But it was agony when all he wanted to be was far away, with Trowa, proving to his friend how all they said were lies.

* * *

They raced each other to the hill, and that spot on it on the far side where no one could see them. Hampered by his books and a violin case, he was no match for Trowa, who waited for him patiently, his own bag thrown on the grass, a demure smile in his green eyes obscured every now and then by the breeze ruffling his hair.

It was that image that kept Quatre from going mad as he waited for class to end, gazing with longing out the classroom windows at the perfect spring weather. Catching his breath, he laid a chaste kiss on his friend's lips, and saw Trowa's eyelashes flutter as he breathed against Quatre.

Then he pulled away, and where Quatre thought he had seen a smile there was a coldness that defied the weather.

"How can you do that so . . . easily?"

"What do you mean?"

"Doesn't it feel weird? I mean, you were just flirting with those girls."

"I wasn't flirting."

A sideways glance made him reconsider.

"Well, I didn't mean anything by it. I can't just ignore them, though. That would be rude."

"Now that you put it that way. . . ." Trowa's sarcastic remark was interrupted by his plopping down on the grass with a deep sigh, and Quatre soon joined him. He had waited so long, it seemed, for this moment to arrive. Didn't Trowa know that? He didn't want to think about anything or anyone else anymore.

"If I was flirting," Quatre at last consented, "it was only because I was thinking of you." They exchanged coy smiles and everything was right again. It didn't cross his mind that Trowa might have doubted his sincerity.

The afternoon passed slowly, the sunlight weighing down on them. Their jackets were draped over the lawn beside them, the sleeves of their shirts rolled up and their ties lying loose around their necks. Quatre lay on his side reading poems, his eyelids feeling heavier with each one. "Yes, and I left there fired by your charm, Licinius," the poet wrote, "and wit, so food gave poor me no pleasure nor could I rest my eyes in sleep—"

He felt as though the author were speaking for him, as though he had sat in this same spot long ago, lying beside his friend as he set down the words, and he smiled as he read them silently.

His downcast eyes must have seemed closed in sleep to Trowa, who had stopped his scribbling a while ago and was tying knots in stalks of grass as he watched him. "You know an African lion sleeps an average of twenty hours a day?" he said.

The randomness made Quatre chuckle and he looked up sleepily. "That's the life."

Trowa lay down, scooting his body down to Quatre's latitude. He nodded. "But all they have to worry about is eating and passing on their genes."

Quatre closed the book and moved it above their heads out of the way. He was wide awake now. He raised himself on one elbow, looking for a sign that that invitation had not been all in his head. But quite unexpectedly, Trowa said, "Let's go to Africa."

Quatre laughed. "Now?"

"What do you think?" Trowa smiled. "When we graduate."

Quatre laid his head on his stretched-out arm. The glimpse of skin beneath Trowa's untucked shirt tempted him and the smell of the grass was suddenly as an aphrodisiac, but he merely stared with an ascetic masochism. Somehow, something in the way Trowa looked made him feel he was no longer deserving of this prize.

* * *

Perhaps I should have noticed. Perhaps I did notice.

But if he was really that jealous, if he really didn't believe me when I said I didn't care about anyone else, all he had to do was say so, instead of leading me around. It wasn't like I hadn't experienced the same feelings myself. It hurts to be jealous of your own friend. The guilt can just about kill you.

Heero didn't deserve the bitterness I felt toward him, I who had so long admired and looked up to him. It was no fault of his own he made Trowa laugh when I couldn't.

There was no denying the teachers adored him, always the top student and gifted to boot. In that way he and Trowa were two sides of the same coin, except one might say Heero's side always landed up. He played the organ in weekly mass, and practiced with us, me on the violin and Trowa on his flute. Together, the three of us were invincible. Solid as a triangle. But somehow I was always the one given the credit for the performance. I was the one who received the attention that was rightly due to the three of us.

The other two didn't seem to mind; acclaim never seemed that important to them. But I won't deny that I enjoyed being in the spotlight, alone, and even began to believe in certain moods that I deserved it. I'm sure now that it was only because of my family name, rather than actual talent. But perhaps I felt the way I did because, deep down, my being singled out for praise only confirmed my distance from the other two.

Sure, Trowa had his friends among the scholarship students, and Heero it seemed preferred to associate with the high school kids when he wasn't following Relena around. But put them together and it was like they were in their own little world of taciturnity—of which I was not a part. Just a stranger looking in.

It was my fault I let it get to that point. I had plenty of opportunities outside the clubs to join them. But for some reason whenever I tried, fear would seize me. Fear that I would be intruding, or embarrassment to be seen by the wrong crowd in the wrong setting with them.

I don't know.

So maybe I couldn't help it. I was used to getting what I wanted. I was weak. All I knew then was that I had to do something about it, even if it was something that affected only the three of us.

I hope you'll forgive me, Heero, for my using our sessions together so selfishly. For turning everything into a competition. Don't blame Trowa, even though he shares the responsibility; it was my idea to start with.

We should have been there, watching and listening and providing our support while you performed your solo like friends are supposed to. We were listening, at least, you can count on that. We heard you playing very clearly in the next room, and your music was so strong, your hands moved so quickly with such mathematical accuracy it made my head spin each time Trowa kissed me. I only started it because I wanted him to know he was mine. And he responded so passionately, like when we played a piece together just the two of us, that for a moment I thought _he_ was the one manipulating _me_.

Why did I have to go and question his motives? That's half the start of all this trouble, isn't it? It's just that you inspired something in him I never quite could. His pace, the way he moved his hands over me—it seemed he was only imitating your music.

We thought as long as your playing drowned everything else out . . .

I thought maybe you wouldn't know and feel betrayed.

They say that the other side of attraction is repulsion. Exacerbated by time and distance, all those things I ignored now present themselves under my microscope out of context. I was never very good at biology. I never had to understand what I did as long as it worked out in the end. How was I supposed to tell the difference between Trowa and myself at this new school when I didn't have one to compare to the other? How was I supposed to separate reality from my imagination with nothing solid to orient me, or justify this jealousy when every day Heero sat across from me at lunch pretending nothing had changed?

But if he was a chameleon in this new school, I was just as guilty. Buying into the illusion of the rose, the illusion of power that only binds me tighter to it, a vicious cycle like a serpent with its tail in its mouth waiting for the End of the World. Not realizing I would be trapped in this dream of freedom and not want to give it up. When did I start believing St. Gabriels was only a fond memory? Something existing on a separate plane from the life I had before? When Trowa arrived, it seemed as though no time had passed at all. But at the same time, it seemed like so long ago it might as well have been another lifetime, or the Paleozoic.

He had no right to come here and force our past on me like this. What was done can't be changed.

I don't understand why, then, if I had that impossible choice, I would return to it, blindness and all. Perhaps I did notice before that all was not right. But at least we could pretend we were happy back then, couldn't we?

I don't think even you could help us now, though. We might have all gotten along better with you here, our middleman, but now I wonder if that would have only been more painful than this animosity. At least this is real. At least this is genuine.

Is that why you left? They say animals can sense disasters before they happen. Did you sense this, Heero?

* * *

Two pianos played in the music room of St. Gabriels academy, bathed in the warm sunlight that shone bright through the spent rain clouds. It was difficult to keep track of the fast, complicated melody, and easy to get swept away. Quatre felt giddy as he raced to catch up with Heero, and in turn challenged his friend to match his own tempo.

Between them, Trowa paced, watching the hammers bouncing under the open lids like they were prize horses on a racetrack. He didn't give away the exhilaration he felt inside, as they all did, at the contest of skill. Eventually, it became too much for Quatre and he gave up in laughter, fingers tired out.

Heero and Trowa glanced his way, twin expressions of amused bafflement on their faces.

It was different at home. Those weekends Trowa spent over on their holidays, they could sit for hours through the morning at the grand piano, tea on the table and the scent of wisteria drifting in from the veranda. The tone was different. Now he played Debussys instead of Mozarts with Trowa sitting beside him on the bench, Chopins instead of Bachs. When there was a pause between songs, Trowa would shyly tap out a melody he had learned for flute, passing the time as though in a dream as they played—music or tennis or chess or video games, it didn't matter—waiting patiently for nightfall.

There was, in fact, no need to wait. His father was away on a business trip, his seven older sisters all out of the house at college, abroad, or with homes and families of their own. The large house was empty once again. Everyone trusted them enough to leave them on their own. After all, Trowa had been sleeping over since he was ten. No one suspected the context of their relationship might have changed since then.

No one suspected that those nights alone in that house, that quiet, straight-and-narrow boy would be stretched out on Quatre's bed, arching and sighing under him in the dark. He was content to let Quatre do anything. His breathing, steady and deep, was seductive in itself, his eyes half-closed, staring at nothing as he relished every sensation, falling within himself.

As many times as they were together, Quatre had to admit nothing had diminished since he had first realized he loved Trowa as more than a friend. The same nuances still created butterflies in his stomach: the subtle glances, the tension of a muscle, the touches that tried to be demure and platonic but mostly failed. He never ceased to feel satisfied and privileged at moments like that, when he felt more needed and at home than in his own house—in his own world, with Trowa's arms around him, Trowa's voice whispering his name. Just knowing it was all for him. Every secret smile.

* * *

I never really did forget about him like I made it sound, but I suppose some things, some aspects of memory, fade with time while others grow out of proportion—especially when you least want them to. When your back is turned and you don't notice, or perhaps when you simply don't want to care.

He was never so cruel as when he was absent. Then he was unable to defend himself from my accusations with that self-pitying manner of his that would have made me take it all back in a heartbeat. In my mind he was a villain, a part he played so well last weekend I felt quite justified in my casting the year before. No doubt that was his intention. It would be just like him to play the Devil's advocate—the betrayed, righteous underdog of a Devil's advocate. To turn the crowd against the hero they once loved with those victim eyes. He knew just how to play his looks, and he knew how much that bothered me. He always had a melodramatic streak.

It's so hard to tell what's real and what's a mask. Even when you think you have a person all figured out. . . .

I wonder if he thinks the same about me.

It's funny how time can seem to overlap when you're least aware of it. How some days after I came here, I would find myself smiling as though he had just cracked one of his dry jokes, or turning to show him something that would have interested him, automatically, only to be disappointed to see no one, and to have to remind myself why he wasn't there. Some nights I would almost swear he was there with me, in my bed, resting beside me and teasing me with kisses that disappeared when I leaned into them. I could hear him saying my name more clearly than when I tried consciously to remember his voice, and catch glimpses of his everywhere. Sometimes even just pieces: the curve of his lips, the hollow of his throat, those sadly smiling eyes. . . .

And then I'd open my eyes. It would all be a dream and I would be left lying there wide awake and ashamed all over again, only my own breathing whispered back to me from the creases in my pillow. It was a miracle I ever slept properly. I was pathetic.

I knew it was no ghost that was torturing me like this. No special mind connection spanning the distance. Nothing like that. It's just that I missed him so much.

Why can't I ever tell him that?

* * *

At leisure yesterday  
We'd much fun with my writing-tablets  
As we'd agreed to be frivolous.  
Each of us writing light verses  
Played now with this metre, now that,  
Capping each other's jokes and toasts.  
Yes, and I left there fired by your charm and wit,  
So food gave poor me no pleasure  
Nor could I rest my eyes in sleep  
But wildly excited turned and tossed over the bed, longing for daylight  
That I might be with you and talk.  
But after my tired aching limbs were lying on the couch half dead,  
I made this poem for you, the charmer,  
So you could spot my trouble from it.

_"Quoting some else's poetry. Is that all you're good for?" _

_"Can't you come up with anything original?"_

As if I hadn't heard that before.  
And what would you have me do?  
Tell me and I'll play your puppet, your fool.  
God knows I am one already.

_"What are you talking about? What's the point  
Of all this namby-pamby—  
This flagrant, vagrant sexual innuendo?" _

_"To get us excited, to gain our pity?  
Because all you've made us feel is dirty." _

_"It's much more than we care to know." _

_"And you think, my dear sir, that we've learned anything new  
In all this time we've been here listening to you?"_

But you _haven't_ been listening! You asked for the truth, but you won't take me seriously. This is not something trivial for your amusement. I'm not trying to shock you.

Why do you think I've kept quiet for so long? I told you you wouldn't understand. No one does.

Apparently, not even I.

* * *

He was awake before dawn. Sitting up in bed, indecision kept him from doing anything else. The wind had stopped outside the dormitory window, but he could still hear the gentle hush of rain falling on the pavement below.

Beside him, tangled in his own sheets, Trowa slept like the dead. The shadows traced tattoos on his exposed back, his tousled hair spilled over his pillow like a mask that had slipped off. Quatre felt an ache piercing his heart as he gazed at his friend's peaceful face. He could feel the combined heat their bodies had created in the night underneath him, and he wanted to melt back into it, even though sleep was the farthest thing from him. There was still time before morning.

He slid out of bed. The air was cold and he shivered under goosebumps. He fumbled for his clothes, tried to discern his uniform from Trowa's in the dark. He took it slow, as though hungover from everything earlier. There was still time to get out before morning—before anyone realized whose room he had spent the night in.

* * *

The funeral was one to be envied, if such could be said about funerals. No expense was spared to honor the deceased. The magnificent ceremony, the uniform transportation, the grand organ and choir that echoed in the rented-out church, the musicians and catering afterwards, the abundant white wreaths that looked as though they would tip over the tripods on which they were mounted—all were fit for a noblewoman, which Mrs. Barton had been in spirit if not by birth. This was how Winners honored their friends. This was how they grieved, by opening their pocketbooks and closing their hearts in ritualistic tradition, so the whole community could see for itself how dearly the deceased had been loved in life.

So many people had shown up, most of whom Quatre didn't recognize. They had probably seen the Winner name and come to take advantage of the Winner hospitality. Most probably didn't know the deceased at all: a piano teacher, by the name of Barton. Who among them could truly understand what she had been to his family?

Seeing his father, dressed in black, so grave, his sisters' reverence and grace when it came to the guests, Quatre tried to imagine that he and his family, who were usually so distant, were at least connected by their grief. But in reality, he realized, he was no more than a thin shadow of that tall, powerful man who kept his emotions in check so perfectly. It was Trowa's mother who had really bound them, and she was gone now.

He glanced at Trowa during the mass and saw his father's impassiveness mirrored there. Quatre's heart ached for his friend, more than he could bear. The bundle of white oriental lilies he held in his hand, promising the spirit's rebirth, were more an offering to him than the woman whose memory he would give them to. It wasn't the dead who needed comforting, after all.

There was a young woman present to whom Trowa spoke. She had come alone, sent with a black town car and driver. Her simple black dress might as well have been her Easter finest the way she wore it. The thin straps tied in bows on her shoulder, a white corsage pinned at the seam of one, little silver stars twinkling cheerfully from behind her curls. One of the eccentric Blooms. She was perhaps the only one who smiled through the entire affair, a sad smile of long acceptance and closure that set her apart from the rest. Her forget-me-not blue eyes and curly auburn hair, with no hat or veil to hide their youthfulness, were just as Mrs. Barton's would have been in her adolescence.

Quatre knew as he watched the two from a distance that they were related, but he didn't know how closely at that time. At that time, he didn't know that she was there to mourn the mother who had left her for a new family when she was only four years old. Perhaps if he had, he would have understood a little better.

Perhaps he would have dreaded it when he saw her and Trowa together near the car, instead of watching with indifference, had he known it would have foreshadowed the boy down the street moving to the suburbs far away.

They didn't mention the girl, the two boys, as they sat together later on a bench in the hall. As they removed themselves from the guests mingling over drinks and hors d'oeuvres. Not a word was said nor a look passed between them as they each sat in their own thoughts and muddled emotions. The lilies sat on his lap—Quatre had forgotten to lay them at the grave in his grief. It seemed so ironic, that something that smelled so sweet should be bought as a symbol for something so terrible, such utter emptiness.

"Your father's done so much for us," Trowa said at one point as he studied his shoes that had been polished to an obsidian luster. "She would have really appreciated it."

Quatre wanted to respond. Then, failing that, he tried to nod his agreement, but even that proved too much. Best not to move, he thought, as though it was merely a pulled muscle nagging him. But hot tears flooded his downcast eyes and sobs gathered in his throat.

He wasn't sure if it was a noise that gave him away, but Trowa turned to him instantly. Perhaps they were connected in some way, as they had often joked, that they could sense things about each other without needing to look or hear. In any case, he saw the concern in his friend's olive green eyes—the concern for him and him alone, so pure and complete. It was more than he could bear. And then Trowa asked him, "Are you all right?"

Lying crossed Quatre's mind on instinct. However, he shook his head, not trusting himself to speak. And when Trowa laid a hand on his arm, Quatre turned and clung to him. He buried his face in Trowa's shoulder as the tears flowed, burning his cheeks and soaking the black wool of Trowa's jacket. Silent sobs wracked his body, until he was forced to take a breath and it gave his cries voice. This too he tried to bury. It was shameful to cry. But this was a funeral and no one was crying. He thought of his father, keeping his emotions in constant check so well. He thought of that Bloom girl and her Buddha smile, even Trowa sitting beside him. A mother and friend had died and not even her own children were crying for her.

Trowa's arms wrapped around him, holding him tight as though he'd never let go, and Quatre no longer cared about how he sounded. He could feel Trowa's loss in his embrace, in the heart beating under his, and it made his own suffering so much worse, doubling his burden. "I'm sorry," he said between sobs. "I'm so sorry." He didn't know what he was apologizing for. His words came out either too soft to be heard or, choked, seemed to echo in the hall.

* * *

I never knew my mother. Perhaps that's why it was easy for me to put Mrs. Barton in that role. It was as though I had two parents who lived in separate houses: one who looked like me but was a stranger, the other, a trusted friend. She was always there—unlike my father. I remember being envious of Trowa sometimes, wishing we could trade parents. Thinking he wouldn't have minded too much: He and Father are a lot alike. In those few years—strange how that short time seemed like eternity and the years after to fly by—it felt almost like we were brothers. Maybe that's why there was never any awkwardness between us.

I didn't learn until some time later, when Irea told me, that Father's feelings for Mrs. Barton went deeper than they appeared. I'm not sure if he would ever have admitted it to his children—or if he even had to himself. Widow and widower—I've heard romances often spring up that way. But she was a good Catholic wife, faithful to her husband even after his death.

Her second husband, I should say. I considered her like a mother to me, yet it turned out I didn't even know her while she was alive. Not that that should come as a surprise. I hardly even know my own father.

I envied Trowa after the funeral, too. It was terrible of me to do so. But in my mind he was free.

And it wasn't fair.

It was after his mother's death that everything began to change: my relationship with myself, and with Trowa, and with my father. I began to think he would have rather had Trowa for a son over me. In the back of my mind I always knew that, though he still loved me more than he showed, I reminded him too much and too painfully of my mother. It wasn't that Father blamed me for her death, but . . . Well, we might as well face the facts: She isn't here because I am.

But that was no reason to take Trowa from me. My most important thing.

Why couldn't I have gotten a perfect score on my biology test like Trowa? Why couldn't I have won first place in the art fair like Trowa? Why couldn't my mile be as fast as Trowa's?

Never mind the times I actually out-competed him. Never mind our fencing bouts. I wanted to be able to show him—to show everyone—there was one thing I could always beat Trowa at, no matter what, one thing they couldn't make me feel inferior about. Something neither he nor Trowa could take away.

But did he care?

Swordfighting was violent, Father said, and if there was one thing he hated, violence was it. If there hadn't actually been a club for it, he would have seen my passion for the sport as a symptom of a volatile personality that needed treatment. If Trowa hadn't been so excited to sign up—

I am the only son of a well-respected businessman, I remind myself. This pressure isn't just natural, it's justified. Certain things are expected of me, and falling in love with my best friend to whom my father constantly compares me is not one of them.

So, you see? I _had_ to keep it a secret. For Father's sake, because his sake was mine and Trowa's.

And I was afraid.

There, I've said it.

I was afraid that no one would understand. I was afraid that if the truth was known, I would lose everything we had, everything I held so dear. Like walking a tightrope, the more people on it the harder it gets to keep your balance. The easier it becomes to slip, and just one little slip can ruin _everything_. And there I was, just trying not to fall, too focused on that to realize what was going on around me.

So I made it seem at school like I hardly knew Trowa as anything more than an acquaintance. Like our childhood get-togethers were simply for our parents' convenience, something we grew out of long ago. Like I didn't need to say more than a word to him in public. And I didn't want to, but not because of any fault of his.

I betrayed him. I know that now. I knew it then. Even though I would have denied it, I knew it in the back of my mind. Thou art truly a villain for that, Quatre. Foolishly I believed my denial was mine and mine alone. But does a man who denies his friends so that he might survive the rack really believe his heart can remain unchanged? Does he really believe he can get away with it?

I honestly never thought that all the while I was trying to save what we had, I was destroying it.

* * *

What, that still doesn't explain why I left? Don't you understand yet? I was trapped! I had to get away somehow. I was stuck carrying the weight of our relationship, and all the pressures that went with it, and I had to get out from under it just to survive. Anyone would have done the same thing.

Wouldn't they?

* * *

Laughter across the courtyard made Quatre look up.

One of the voices was unmistakably Duo's, who, with his friends, had his lunch laid out on the steps leading up to the Humanities buildings. It was an unseasonably dry and pleasant October day and everyone who was anyone was eating outside.

The other voice that had puzzled him, he saw, belonged to a young man their age Quatre had never seen before. He was wearing a sky blue _gakuran_ and was accompanied by a girl in a matching, rather revealing _seifuku_ with puffy sleeves that made her stick out like a sore thumb among the conservative gray and maroon of St. Gabriels. The other boys, and most of the girls as well, were staring at the two of them, and he saw Trowa say something that made the girl blush.

"Who are they?" he asked, pretending only mild interest. "I haven't seen them before."

He didn't need to specify because the two girls had had their eye on the pair all morning.

"Oh, those two," said Dorothy. "They're exchange students. Just came in today, you know."

"They're from Ohtori," Relena added. By her look, he got the feeling the name should have struck a bell. But it didn't. "Really nice people. You'd think they'd be kind of stuck up, but I didn't get that impression at all. Did you?" she asked, turning to Heero.

"That school has the highest standards for enrollment, according to everything I've read," was his ambiguous response as he rolled his lunch around with his chopsticks. "They only accept students with notable talents or leadership potential. As long as their parents can afford it, that is."

"Don't be so negative," Dorothy said. "It's not like _you'd_ have anything to worry about if you were trying to enroll." Heero merely shrugged as he stuffed a cucumber roll into his mouth. "I had phys. ed. with the girl, and she said it's not as strict as everyone makes it out to be. It might be worth looking into, doing some kind of exchange for a year or two."

Feeling left out, Quatre ventured: "And what is Ohtori exactly?"

"Come on, Quatre," Dorothy said with exaggerated shock, "don't tell me you haven't heard of the Ohtori Peers Academy! It's only one of _the_ top-five highest rated private schools in the world. Very hard to get into and _very_ worth it." He shrugged and she shook her head. "You're hopeless, you know that?"

He nodded absently, for his mind was already beginning to drift again. It sounded like just the kind of school his father would want him to attend, and for that reason he was reluctant to be seen speaking to the exchange students. It bothered him that Trowa, on the other hand, who was normally so shy, was being so friendly with them.

There was something about them, however, that was so subtly noble and cryptic that Quatre's interest was piqued. Ohtori. He wouldn't forget that name.

When Dorothy caught him staring at the pair, she mistook his meaning. "They're getting normal uniforms tomorrow," she said, leaning toward him. "Too bad, too. I kind of like those ones."

"You would," said Relena. "_I_ wouldn't be caught dead in a skirt like that. It's degrading."

"Yes, it is awfully distracting. Isn't it, Heero?"

Heero pretended he hadn't heard, but his cheeks colored faintly.

* * *

So I made a mistake. You can damn me all you want. I guess I've earned it. But I can't say it will do any good.

I can't see that there's anything I can do about it anymore.

* * *

Quatre managed to convince his father to hold the going-away party at their home. Of course, he was either out or in his office for most of the affair, leaving everything to Quatre's sisters and the recent graduates, who he preferred over Quatre and his classmates when it was time for him to make obligatory conversation. It was somewhat embarrassing, but the least of Quatre's worries. He could not enjoy himself, no matter what he tried, and constantly found himself back on the couch by the window with no memory of what he had been doing before, simply waiting.

In the kitchen, Une and Sally chatted with his sisters about starting classes at the university in the fall, and Dorothy teased an uncomfortable Nichol, whom she had known since childhood as the godson of her grandfather, Representative Dermail. Relena was trying to make conversation with Duo and his girlfriend, Heero and Wufei sitting awkwardly in the middle, only really excited when they could contribute some technobabble to the conversation.

But they were all having fun, the looks on their faces told, especially when Mr. Howard, everyone's favorite teacher, showed up in the afternoon with graduation and going-away presents—as though this was just a carefree party like any other, not a time for farewells. Someone turned on the stereo, there was laughter, and Quatre looked up to see Hilde asking him if he wanted to dance. It was a pity invitation, and he appreciated her concern though he declined.

"When's Trowa going to get here?" she asked with a sigh, and Quatre felt sorry for her, because he had invited her as a favor to his friend and she hardly knew anyone at the party well besides Duo and Wufei.

"He'll be here," he told her, hardly in answer to her question.

Barely a minute later, he heard the hum of an engine, and car doors slamming outside. His sudden excitement must have shown through his veneer of indifference, but he didn't care as he hurried to the foyer. His heart was racing despite himself with anticipation.

But when he saw the tall young man who came through the door, long blond hair in a loose ponytail, sporting expensive clothes and shades, the keys to an expensive convertible dangling from his fingers, the sudden disappointment hurt almost more than he could bear straight-faced.

"Hey, Mr. Winner, we're here!" the senior called into the house as Noin shut the door behind him.

"Milliardo," his father called back from the kitchen, "did you get more ice?"

"I bought two bags, just in case."

"Let me take them," Quatre offered. If he made himself look busy, maybe they wouldn't notice his mood.

But it was too late. "You okay? You look pale," Milliardo remarked when he had taken off his sunglasses.

"Nerves," Quatre lied. He forced a smile, at which the other nodded with understanding and pushed a gift-wrapped hardcover into his other hand. "Our going-away present," he explained. "I know how much you love the Classics. It's a limited edition printing."

"Thanks," Quatre said, feeling that one word incredibly insufficient. He set the gift on the table, taking Noin's bag of ice off her hands, and noticing a flicker of gold on her left hand before she could hide it. As he went to the kitchen, he glanced over his shoulder as Milliardo hugged his little sister, received a hearty, congratulatory handshake from Quatre's father, and made himself perfectly at home.

Presently the sparkling cider came out, and over an early dinner the conversation became animated, the memories flowing as easily as the drinks for toasts. Watching their faces, Quatre once again felt like a stranger in his own home. It was a plague on his mind he had often tried to cure by willing himself to cheer up—he felt guilty for not giving his classmates enough in return for their friendship—but any success was only temporary. Out of the context of school, he didn't know how to act around them. He was at a loss when Wufei tried to strike up a conversation with him, or Duo, even though that amiable young man had always made him feel welcome into their circle.

His real reason for inviting them Quatre couldn't admit, just as he couldn't tell Relena and Dorothy why he had insisted on hosting the party himself: He had hoped it would make Trowa feel obligated to show up. After all, Trowa had promised he would. It was the most direct thing he had managed to say to Quatre since the night of the spring ball, so it had to be true.

So Quatre told himself, at least. Repeatedly. He wasn't used to his plans failing.

Dinner came and went, but there was always dessert. A dramatic entrance, at sunset when no one expected it, stepping in to handshakes and hugs and toasts. Trowa smiling. The crowd moving to the backyard for final good wishes before they would all go their separate ways.

But dessert came and went as well, and eventually so did the guests. The last stragglers helped Quatre and his sisters clean up while his father sat on the veranda with Mr. Howard and Milliardo. Relena had gone home earlier with Dorothy, and Noin could only give him sympathetic glances every now and then, lately afflicted by some strange shyness he knew was connected to that band of gold he had only managed to glimpse. At this melancholy part of the day, it was a good time for a late arrival, for disappointment turning to joy like the switch of a light. Having to spend the night because of the time, because the taxi driver had gotten lost and he was out of money, or too tired from riding his bike the whole way. No need for apologies for one night, it would be the last in too long a time.

Quatre should have known better than to get his hopes up.

"I wonder what happened to Trowa," Irea said later as she wiped the last of the dishes. A late-night variety show could be heard in the next room over. The glasses clinked against each other as she placed them in the cupboard. "Do you think maybe he came down with something? It's not like him not to call."

Her words, however kindly meant, cut deep. He wasn't sure what time it was when he finally went to bed.

* * *

•

* * *

It was late. That was all he knew.

And he was wide awake. The tears he had shed—how long ago was that? a few minutes? an hour?—had soaked into the bedsheets as the sweat soaked his skin. No cool breeze to evaporate it. He wasn't getting to sleep any faster lying still, stuck to his clothes, but he hardly had the energy or will power to move. His eyes focused on the stereo display still glowing, still playing classical music he had given up listening to. If it stayed on all night when he did get to sleep and he missed his alarm . . .

Feeling numb, as if in a dream, he slowly raised himself into a sitting position. His body seemed so heavy. . . .

He turned off the stereo, then stopped. The Moroccan-bound book Relena's brother had given him a year ago lay on the table next to it, innocently. Tauntingly. Quatre couldn't remember putting it there. But he must have. There was no one else here.

He opened it with a sense of dread and excitement both, yet could not stop himself—like a man who, though aware of the terrible consequences, finds himself unable to do anything but walk through the door of his own doom.

Familiar words assaulted him. _Odi et amo._ I hate and love.

"I hate and love," he read silently. "Perhaps you're asking why I do that? I don't know, but I feel it happening and am tortured."

They had read that piece together so many times, marveling at the depth of emotion described with such simplicity, not thinking much of it, so that the page in his old paperback edition had become creased.

Now it seemed to Quatre like an old friend stabbing him in the gut. He had been afraid to let the words sink in; now he had no choice but to face their brutal truth. He had spent so long thinking up excuses, building up his reasoning because that was just the kind of person he was; but in the end those carefully erected reasons only left him feeling even less justified and less sincere. Hiding behind them had not made him stronger. Quite the opposite. He had been so immature, to think he could blame everyone else for his own mistakes, or that he should blame anyone at all for his feelings. Yet to be able to accept that what had happened was just that seemed intolerable.

It seemed like the end.

He rubbed his eyes, which were painfully dry now. He let his arms fall into his lap as he stared at the far corner of the room. At the open books on the desk, the white uniform clinging to the foot of the bed, the large single room with the large bed he didn't deserve any more than anyone else did, just because he had been appointed class representative. He didn't even know what that meant, now that he thought about it.

For the first time in almost a year he asked himself, What am I doing here?

For the first time, he couldn't come up with an answer.

* * *

**Chapter notes: **_"At leisure, Licinius, yesterday . . ."_ is Catullus #50 as translated by Guy Lee. Quatre quotes it twice, but leaves out the name the second time. Like the one in part 3 it is spoken to a male friend. The ending lines go like this: _"Now don't be rash, please—don't reject/Our prayers, we implore you, precious/Lest Nemesis make you pay for it./She's a drastic Goddess. Don't provoke her."_

_"Odi et amo. . . ."_ is Catullus #85.


	8. 

It was too late to be studying, but he couldn't sleep and it had seemed the best way to pass the time.

Trowa hadn't slept much at all since arriving at Ohtori, and consequently he suspected he had just about caught up to his classes. The truth was, it was easier to open a textbook and turn off every part of his mind but the logical part, than lie in the dark and let his thoughts run free. It was less painful.

Their argument was still fresh in his mind. How could it not be? _Maybe it was all just a big waste of time in the first place._ He kept hearing Quatre's defeated voice in his mind and wondered what he meant by saying such a thing. If it was true that their friendship had been more trouble than it was worth from the beginning, he was ready to believe it; but that didn't mean it was so worthless not to be pursued.

As though lying in wait by some subconscious will of his, or in cahoots with the relentless weather, the stack of pictures and notes happened to be in his path when he reached blindly for the glass of water sitting on the table beside the bed. They fell onto the floor, and he automatically bent to pick them up, not sure if it was out of some instinct to protect himself from their association or them from his carelessness.

The fencing photo came to the top, and despite his will's feeble attempts to push them away, his eyes lingered over the people in it. How things had changed: Half of those people he seemed to hardly know anymore; they were a world away and as faded in his memory as part of a dream. As for Quatre and himself—those fourteen-year-old faces that stared back at him were nothing but the faces of liars, now that he knew the truth about them. They all looked so foolish, robots programmed to smile for the camera, for the crowds, not even the most serious among them truly looking comfortable in his own skin. The obsequiousness in his own olive green eyes was embarrassing to look at, to speak nothing of Quatre's faux sincerity. Seeing it now, with the clarity of hindsight, the maliciousness behind his friend's smile was all too apparent.

And yet it still captured Trowa, moved him. He was wrong. He must have been. They had been fools back then, that was true, but only because they had been so young and naïve as to assume they could go so fast and somehow survive. It was through ignorance and arrogance they'd made this hell for themselves. And yet, for some reason, looking back, it still seemed to Trowa like the best time of his life.

They had been so young as to think they could get away with dancing around the truth forever, never conceding eventually the music would have to stop. And yet something had been honest.

His fingers traced the image of his old friend, as though he could feel Quatre solid through the paper. The roughness of his fencing jacket, or the slight wave of his light blond hair against the back of his head. Or the cold, smooth keys of his grand piano. Or the soft wetness of grass on the first warm day in the middle of spring.

Something had been honest. Something had been genuine. . . .

Even if he could no longer put his finger on what it was.

It was difficult, but Trowa managed to tear himself from the photograph. His traveling fingers pulled out Wufei's letter instead, which he had forgotten in all that had happened during the past week.

"I must apologize," began the second paragraph of Wufei's letter, with a candidness that was just like his friend. "For Maxwell as well, but mostly for myself because it took me longer to get over it.

"I know we weren't very supportive of your decision to transfer—and don't say you didn't notice because I know it showed. I guess I was a little jealous, you had this opportunity I should have strived for myself and didn't, and I was wrong to take that out on you. If I can speak for Maxwell, I think he felt a little abandoned. But mostly we just didn't want to see you leave us.

"We—I mean, _I_ didn't want things to change. It was selfish of me, to think things could always stay the same, when realistically I knew that was impossible. I was selfish, because I didn't want to lose any more of my friends to that school. But I really was happy for you. I know how much this transfer means to you, and I want you to know, even if just in hindsight, that I'm sorry we didn't make it more clear how proud we are to call you our friend—"

With a wince, Trowa folded the letter. He couldn't read any more. Not now. Not when his own wounds were so freshly reopened. It felt too much like judgment, however well-intentional on Wufei's part—like a mirror held up before him, the reflection in which Trowa was too disgusted to see. In truth, he had been too caught up in his own feelings those last few months before his transfer to notice if his friends had treated him any different. Knowing now, the letter made him ache inside with a bitter, nostalgic guilt, but it was not from the sincerity in Wufei's sentiments.

I never told him, he thought and rested his forehead on his bended knees. I should have told him. . . .

He felt ashamed remembering how Quatre had asked him that very question: Why can't you just be happy for me? That happiness, above all else, he should have been able to give his friend, and not when time and distance had worn the edges smooth. It was a thing one did because of love, without hesitation or need for flawless reasoning.

And it was one thing he still couldn't give. After all this time, he wasn't happy for Quatre or the choice he had made; and in fact, now that he was here, at this school Quatre had given him up for, he felt even less so.

However, the person who needed forgiveness wasn't Quatre, as Trowa had led himself to believe, and he, Trowa, was not the one to give it.

Nor did he deserve to receive it.

The letter was getting wrinkled in his hand. Out of respect for the one who wrote it, he straightened it out against his thigh, folded it, and placed it back on the nightstand. He could guess what Wufei would say in this situation. Trowa had asked him once, when he thought his friend would have no idea as to the context of his question, why people hated. The answer was simple.

"Because they are weak."

It was much sounder wisdom than Heero's advice to "act on your emotions." That had brought Trowa and Quatre both nothing but trouble, especially when swords had been placed in their hands—although, in their friend's defense, Heero had probably only been speaking about music.

And it was just like Wufei to say such a thing. Unfortunately, as true as his answer was, it did nothing to solve the problem that lay before Trowa now.

He got out of bed and decided to go for a walk, since it was bound to be at least somewhat cooler outside. It was past midnight; that was all Trowa knew for he refused to look at his watch out of some superstition that knowing would make it that much harder to sleep. Why he should care, he wasn't sure, because he had already resigned himself to getting little to none at all.

"Hey. Triton," said a boy in his class as he passed while coming back from the bathroom. "What are you doing up?"

"Going for a walk."

"This late at night?"

Trowa shrugged. He did not care enough to match his classmate's geniality, as forced as even that seemed at this hour. Over the last several days, in fact ever since the duel with Quatre, Trowa had become something of a celebrity in the dorm. But that did not automatically make him approachable. Here Trowa had thought it would be nice to be the center of attention for once, if only for the reversal of roles. If only to see Quatre reality, it only made him feel more alone. And he ached for company, though the company he most desired was unattainable. He ached for home, to be with his friends, to be with Cathrine, even if it meant suffering in that large, empty house.

That is, if any of that was still real. If the world outside Ohtori still existed, if he wasn't trapped inside this bubble universe forever.

But to be alone—to be absolutely and utterly alone—that was what he deserved. Quatre had rejected him, and St. Gabriels had as well, in its own way. He would relish this pain he felt inside, mirrored in the discomfort of a stone bench in the park. He would sit there as long as he had to for Ohtori to suck him into that dream Quatre had spoken of, if it was half as real as Quatre made it sound. He couldn't fight what he had coming to him, punishment though it was, to be awake to see the sunrise with the precise knowledge of where they had gone wrong to torment him over and over until the morning.

Even though it might mean seeing the last of his hope fading like the stars.

* * *

"'O, think'st thou we shall ever meet again?'"

"'I doubt it not, and all these woes shall serve for sweet discourses in our time to come.'"

"'O God, I have an ill-divining soul,'" Relena read. One student cleared his throat, another's chair creaked, but all were intent on their classmates' reading, lost in the words, in the emotion of them if not the syntax.

Quatre looked over at Trowa to see him no different. His harsh expression of late softened as his eyes moved across the page. Strange how Quatre no longer felt bitterness toward him, though he thought for sure he would, for only one night had passed since he had been convinced he hated his old friend. Impatience was all he felt now, for a clock that didn't move fast enough, for a play that never seemed to end.

"'Methinks I see thee now thou art so low, as one dead in the bottom of a tomb. Either my eyesight fails, or thou lookest pale.'"

Quatre didn't notice the awkward silence that followed until the professor's voice boomed: "Romeo: '_And trust me, love—_'"

Quatre started. "'And trust me, love,'" he quickly resumed—he didn't need to glance at the page, "'in my eye so do you. Dry sorrow drinks our blood.'" It was not acting this time that softened those words, and now Trowa looked up and met his eyes across the aisle. He really did look pale, Quatre thought. He had to turn away, unwilling in some vaguely superstitious way to say the last words to those sad eyes.

Instead, he said them to the book, and felt a peaceful smile come upon his lips as he did so: "'Adieu, adieu.'"

After a brief pause, Relena resumed, her voice clear and theatrical, more the voice of an orator than a lovesick fool. But Quatre could not fault her for that. "'O fortune, fortune, all men call thee fickle; if thou art fickle, what dost thou with him that is renowned for faith? Be fickle, fortune; for then I hope thou wilt not keep him long, but send him back.'"

_Send him back_. No, that was one thing he couldn't rely on fortune alone to do.

Quatre spent lunch that day lost in thought. In order to avoid suspicion he pretended to take an interest in the heated debate Relena and Dorothy had over their own lunches on the credibility of _Romeo and Juliet_—which was fascinating if for no other reason than that the two girls had completely opposite viewpoints. But he often contradicted himself, agreeing with one side and then the other without any rhyme or reason. His thoughts simply preferred to travel elsewhere. He lapsed into a strange silence so many times his classmates finally asked him if he was feeling ill. He managed to convince them otherwise by his having wolfed down his lunch, even though by their own words he never showed a healthy appetite.

And where had Triton been since last Saturday? they couldn't help wondering aloud. Every now and then, Quatre thought he would look over and see his friend eating hunched over some open science textbook. Quatre even found himself worrying about whether Trowa had eaten any lunch at all since the last time the four of them had gotten together. He seemed more distant than usual during phys. ed., hardly acknowledging his classmates' words of encouragement.

Of course, Trowa would not want to talk to me of all people, Quatre told himself, after what was said. Who would? It was perfectly understandable that they should be avoiding one another so soon after the fact. Surely Trowa was spending his time studying, since he had a few months of material to catch up on with his transfer.

Which was something Quatre realized now he should have done. He arrived to history that afternoon only to have the professor announce they were having a test. Starting, he glanced around at the other students, but none seemed to be as surprised. It was a moment before he remembered they had been notified of it a week ago.

He stumbled his way through, sure he would receive a dismal grade in return. But after an hour or so with the fencing club, and even when he arrived to the science lab equally unprepared—and with just as little sleep—the next morning, he was surprised to find it didn't bother him.

How out-of-character, Quatre mused. Any other time it would have felt like his worst nightmare come true. Oddly enough, he felt relaxed, as though a great weight had been lifted from him. He might have even described his own mood as cheerful, at least in comparison to much of the time he could remember since his arrival at Ohtori. At any other time, he would have taken it as a clue that something was wrong, this sudden apathy concerning his academic and social life, but it was difficult to truly think the peace that had so long escaped him needed correcting.

It was Friday, a week since he had first seen Trowa again in over a year. There had been a time he had yearned so much to see his old friend, every waking moment—and some sleeping, as well—had been torture.

Now he didn't know what he wanted. Even if he did, it wouldn't matter. His actions over the past week had made sure that, whatever happened now, it was out of his hands.

Maybe that was why Quatre finally felt at peace.

* * *

The bustle that filled the halls after the end of class on a Friday was relieving. The week was almost over, with a break from tests that had somehow been unfairly coordinated, and no postings or duels to stir up tension in the already stagnant air.

Utena sighed into her open locker, feeling as though she could just dump the remainder of her stress into it, and not have to worry about picking it back up until Monday morning at the earliest. "You seem to be in high spirits, Miss Utena," Himemiya said, coming up beside her.

She shut the locker and smiled. "Yep!" she said, "and nothing can ruin it. No homework and the weather's great. I hear it's finally supposed to rain late tomorrow. Until then, I just want to sit in the sun and enjoy it, and not have to care about anything." She slung her book bag over her shoulder, stretching as she beamed, and Himemiya returned the look with a grin of her own. Chu-Chu had hitched a ride and was gazing at her from under the flap of his mistress's bag, which rested against the front of Himemiya's thighs. "Wanna join me?"

"Chu," said the monkey, which she took as an affirmative.

"I promised to help move the projects out of the art room," Himemiya said. "It won't take long."

"Well, in that case, I'll go with you." With a spring in her step, Utena walked beside her, exchanging an enthusiastic look with her friend. It was one of those odd days where any chore seemed like anything but. In truth, it was the feeling of being home free—or so near it as to be good enough—that lifted her spirits. Quatre's graciousness in refusing the duel the other day had finally rubbed off on her and was as refreshing as the deep blue of a clearer sky.

It didn't occur to her, though in retrospect she knew it should have, that it could be too good to be true.

"Tenjou, wait up!"

They had hardly stepped into the sun when one of their classmates, a boy, came up to them, holding something in his hand. "Hey, Tenjou," he said, "I think this fell out of your locker."

"Um, thanks."

The boy nodded with a small bashful smile, but Utena hardly noticed as she studied the object he had given her—and realized with a sinking feeling in her gut what it was.

An envelope with her name in a cursive print, and a card inside. She knew the contents without looking, though she had hoped against hope it was something other than the invitation stamped with the school's ubiquitous rose seal. "Meet me at the duelists' field, eight o'clock tonight."

Himemiya watched the smile disappear from her lips. "What is it?" she asked, though she must have already known. Her voice was filled with apprehension.

"Another challenge." With a sharp hiss through her teeth, Utena crumpled the card and envelope in her fist. "He lied!" she said. "Quatre lied to us. He said—he promised he wouldn't fight. I should have known we couldn't trust him to keep his word."

Her voice broke slightly as she lowered it. It was one thing to have accepted his duties in the first place, but to break his promise and in such a cowardly manner, to betray them like that. . . .

That was low.

"Did he sign it?" Himemiya asked, and Utena couldn't help but envy her calm. "No."

"Then how can we be sure the challenge is from him?"

"Because," Utena said. "Because they're all the same, those student council types. They're all after one thing after all. Aren't they?"

Himemiya didn't answer.

* * *

Juri was surprised to hear her name called as she was leaving her last class of the day. She recognized the voice instantly, but it was the tone of it that made her turn with a question on her lips. "Quatre?"

He was smiling. One hand was in his pocket, the other holding his books. Its ring looked uncomfortable and out of place with his casual poise—and Quatre, for once, did not. "Do you have a minute? Or ten?" he asked. "I want to show you something in the music room."

She regarded him skeptically. "What do you have up your sleeve now?"

"Nothing. I only thought this would be a good day to hear a live piece. I promised you I would play a solo for you one day, to convince you my talk wasn't just bragging." He was teasing her, gently, though even such a gesture could not break down the awkwardness that she felt would always remain between the two of them.

However, it was for another reason that his smile wavered and held on, a quiet desperation and urgency that she found impossible to dismiss easily with much decency, even though she did not know the reason for it—perhaps because she did not know the reason for it. "I think I could spare ten," she said. If he needed her that badly, she could spare sixty.

The practice room was empty except for Miki, who stood from the piano bench and lowered the cover over the keyboard when he saw them enter. "Please, stay," Quatre asked him before he could utter more than a syllable. He deposited his books on the table, next to which lay his violin case, and opened the latches. "If you have the time, I'd appreciate it if you would."

"Stay for what?" said Miki.

"A private concert," Juri told him as she pulled out one of the chairs around the small table and sat, crossing one leg over the other. Miki in turn took a seat on the windowsill where the sound of insects reached him through the open window.

Quatre lowered his head. "To be my witnesses," he corrected. "I guess."

Baffled, the two looked to him.

But Quatre's eyes remained downcast and focused on his violin as he ran his fingers over the strings to grip the neck, a ritual of touch before he tenderly lifted it out of its case.

He hesitated before bringing it to his shoulder. "I . . . owe both of you an apology," he said.

"For what?" Miki asked again, but his voice never traveled past the window, and his words were lost under the first strains of music as bow touched strings.

It was a Bruch adagio that he played, a Romantic piece of the kind so often overlooked in the practical times in which they lived. He attacked the melody immediately, drawing the high notes out long and poignant, the sound hanging weightless for a brief moment before falling again to the bottom, forced to climb its way back up in stops and starts of quick trills.

Back and forth the melody weaved, always reaching out for something high above and just out of reach: Farther and farther it reached, but, alas, never far enough. The violin sang in a plaintive voice under the deft touch of his fingers and the sweeping of the bow, the vibrations of the strings echoing in the high-ceiling room.

Gradually his pace slowed until the music was like a long sigh of resignation, slowly transforming itself into something entirely different, something less violent though no less passionate, something like the recollection of a fond memory.

* * *

Mesmerized by the music, Miki failed to see Trowa sitting below him, enjoying the tender strain of the violin perhaps more than either of Quatre's guests—and with more pain than either of them could imagine.

Trowa had come to hear the seventh-grader's piano playing, which traveled brightly down to him through the open second-storey window, carried on a breeze, a pleasant background to his reading beside the rhododendrons. That playing had made him feel nostalgic. Even with the bitter knowledge that there was something missing—a different hand, a different interpretation—he could not help trying to grasp some distant memory and, embarrassed to be caught at it, hoped no one would come idly by to see that struggle mirrored in his eyes.

He had not expected anything else. Therefore, it came as a surprise when he did hear those first familiar notes, and recognized the hand that made the violin sing so high and so tender, even if it had never sung so well before. He almost swore his heart stopped, and the blood rushed throughout his limbs, to his cheeks, the pit of his stomach. It was funny how the physical reaction of embarrassment was the same as that one experienced at the moment of feeling his heart was understood.

And how a simple melody could trigger that.

He could not help turning his gaze to the music room window. It was a melody that demanded he look up, and he only hoped that in doing so the music would not fade, as stars often did when one attempted to look at them directly. There was nothing pretentious in that playing, nothing like the empty technical skill that won its player such acclaim from the students in their practice sessions, and parents who knew no better. It was the exact antithesis of Heero's precise organ concertos, so constant in their tempo and pattern, that had excited him a year ago.

It was sincere, a pure melody that made everything outside of it in contrast, including himself, seem very insincere indeed. It was agony to listen to. It was too personal, too condemning. Too sympathetic.

And it was almost what he had been searching for. Almost. . . .

* * *

Quatre's downcast eyes saw only his fingers and the bow gliding over strings as he played, if they saw anything at all. His hands knew how to play from memory. He let them take control and lead the rest of his body, and in doing so allowed his feelings, even those whose existence he had tried to deny and bury, to flow through them and be released in the instrument.

Regret and failure, resentment, self-loathing, jealousy, fear and uncertainty. . . .

But also happiness, sadness, laughter and excitement, tenderness and a hope that it might be returned—all became vibrations in the air as the music took on a new eagerness. Quatre felt each one penetrate his heart in turn, and pull at his limbs until they felt the strain of those attacks and parries carried out on the fencing strip—forcing him to watch that past he had avoided for so long unfold, until nothing would remain but the waking present.

I can't go back, he thought to himself, and for once the notion resonated within him with real conviction, as he dragged the notes from the violin up and down the scale. Forward, back, and stubbornly forward again. The good times, the deceptions and the hubris that they'd managed to avoid for so long—that illusion he had shattered long ago when he had made his decision to come here. He could no longer pretend innocence in the matter. Whether that friendship was eternal or doomed from the start, who could know?

The fact remained he had maimed it. He could not avoid that reality with more illusions. When something is wounded so badly it either dies or recovers. It doesn't prefer to wallow in its pain forever, he thought. Then why have I?

He closed his eyes, and a smile came onto his lips.

* * *

"Excuse me. . . . Excuse me, are you Quatre Winner's friend?"

Trowa started when he realized the speaker was referring to him. It had, in fact, been hearing that boy's name that finally got his attention.

He looked her over—a middle school girl with long limbs hanging in flirtatious postures, platinum blond hair pulled back that reminded him of Dorothy, and haughty, deep blue eyes that somehow did not—not for long, but long enough to know her company was not to be particularly desired. He turned back to the book open on his lap in the hopes she would take the hint; and he answered just as coldly as she had addressed him: "_Former_ friend."

Instead of leaving, however, she uttered a long, "O-o-oh. . . . I see. . . ." Her gaze turned upward, toward the open music room window. In doing so, she seemed a perfect intruder. Her long finger was held demurely to her lip. "Well, I guess I can't say I wouldn't feel the same way if I were you, if the person I trusted most did that to me."

Head still bowed, he glanced up.

"You must feel betrayed. And you'd be justified, you know."

"I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean," he said.

"You don't have to be so coy," she said. Her manner was falsely intimate; she was no more interested in him than she would be a snail crossing her path. But she sold the illusion of interest—and sympathy, and pity—with everything she had. Trowa had to wonder if it fooled anyone. "So many of the boys here get caught in that trap at one time or another," she said. "How could you have known? Was it she who told you? Or did Quatre confess it to you himself?"

"Confess what?"

"His feelings for Himemiya, of course."

Trowa blinked. She thinks Quatre and I are both after that girl . . .?

He began to tell her she had it wrong, Himemiya had nothing to do with it, but something inside stopped him. The truth was none of her business; only that of the two it concerned. Merely her presence here disrupted the fragile tether woven by the waves of music that reached his ears, corrupting their sincerity somehow with her presumptuousness.

Still, he remembered his own short-lived jealousy at seeing the two of them together, Quatre and Himemiya, and how foolish he had felt after meeting that girl properly to think there could have been anything remotely serious between them. Who was this girl to suddenly bring that up? "Trust me," he said. Two could play this game, and he flashed a charming smile. "You wouldn't understand." He made a point of returning to his studies.

"He refused to fight for her, you know."

Trowa started. Somehow he knew whom she meant before she could elaborate.

"The Rose Bride. He had the right, but he gave it up. See? It's a sign he already cares too much. He's hopeless, that boy. I thought at least you would want to know, seeing as how you used to be such good friends. If you can't put an end to his delusions, who can?"

The Rose Bride. . . . Just the mention of that name made Trowa burn with curiosity. Somehow he kept silent, and forced his eyes not to stray from the page.

"If you don't believe me," she said, and held something out to him, slipping it into his field of vision, "take this."

It was a small card, a little wrinkled. Beyond it, her fair, adolescent thighs disappeared under her short skirt. Reluctantly, he took what she offered him. "An invitation?" he asked as he read the contents. An invitation to duel. . . .

"Mm-hm. You have the ring with the rose seal. I won't ask how you got it, but that makes you eligible."

He turned the card over and over again, hardly registering the rose seal as the ominous thing he knew it in the back of his mind to be. "This is for me?" His own voice sounded distant to his ears, as if out of a fog.

"Well, it was Quatre's—"

"What?"

"But he didn't want it." She sighed heavily. "So he gave it back to my brother."

For a moment Trowa could only stare up at her while this new information fell into place. Quatre had been invited to duel. He had been _meant_ to duel. But he had rejected his duty. And now there was a chance that he, Trowa, could take his place—his undesired place. The irony was perfect; and he understood that what this girl was offering him, though she was careful not to say it aloud, was a chance to take his revenge. But whether she saw it as being his right or whether it was for her own sake that she approached him was not so clear. How could he distinguish the two? Rather, what did it matter?

Trowa turned toward the rhododendrons. "He should have torn it up."

* * *

Had only a week passed since all this trouble began? It seemed like a year. And the year like a week. I must have been living in a dream, Quatre thought; I must have been walking around with my eyes on the ground and the only way I ever had of knowing it was to have someone knock me down so I could see the sky. To finally see it, itself, not just some reflection in a pool. That's what it feels like to be awake—that's what it feels like to be sincere with myself for the first time since I can remember. . . .

The pure blue of the summer sky stood out clear through the frames of the windows. He saw it in his mind. His heart, even now so full of painful memories, began to feel that light despite them. The bow across his violin, like a jet across that blue, pointed out a direction.

At last the song's close drew near as the tempo slowed and the notes drew out, ascending that invisible spiral staircase in the air where their conclusion waited. And at last he was able to reach it, that shining thing that had drifted so far up out of his grasp. The violin's voice climbed higher and higher, to an exhausted, breathy note that trembled as it first came off the strings, but somehow found the strength to grow bit by tiny bit, and finish contented.

It was a long moment after the last vibrations had died away before Quatre lowered the instrument, and yet another before anyone spoke. Ten minutes had passed since he started playing. For those ten minutes he had felt like the only person in the room. Yet it was grounding when he opened his eyes to know the person he had meant the piece for, the one person who would have read his meaning from it clearly, was not and had never been here with him to hear it.

Still, there was a smile on his lips, full of so much the music still left unsaid that it was impossible for Juri to respond with the sarcasm she was used to using with him, knowing that young man had, in some way, shared something deeply personal, if inexplicable, with her and Miki. It felt to both something like voyeurism.

"I'm sorry," Quatre said. "That's all I really wanted to say."

"For what?" Juri breathed.

"For everything!"

It came out in a bark of a laugh. But if there was anything funny in this, it was only how foolish he had been. Setting the instrument down gently, Quatre said: "But I can't leave it at that, can I? I guess the reason I asked you here wasn't just to hear me play. It doesn't seem right, given how we've treated each other over the last year, speaking ill behind one another's backs, being sarcastic to each other's faces, that I shouldn't have some other motive."

Pausing before he proceeded, he leaned back against the table's edge.

Miki opened his mouth to say that had all been in friendly competition on the strip, but thought better of it. He turned his gaze toward the rhododendrons below the window instead, and the empty pathway that ran beside the building. The seconds continued to change over on his digital stopwatch.

"I came here hoping to ask you if you would take my place tonight, in the duel," Quatre said to Juri. "You were the only one I could think of who doesn't seem afraid of the whole idea of dueling, in whatever strange context it exists in this school. You're the only one who doesn't treat it like a game—therefore, the only one I felt I could trust. But I knew it was too much to ask you to do this for me." He smiled uncertainly. "I wanted you to do it for _you_. I wanted you to take this opportunity to win like I can tell you want to do. You still carry it in you, don't you, that precious thing? If you won, it would be all yours, and then you might be able to find happiness again—wouldn't you?"

"Perhaps. . . ." Inexplicably terrified, Juri hesitated. "But—"

"But I changed my mind."

She looked up.

"This is my duel," Quatre said. "It was given to me, for me to fight. I can't just ignore it and expect it to go away, or resolve itself. Even if I don't want it. I was so selfish, to think I was so special I could just pass my burden on to someone else. But I was afraid of what might happen if I won." He brushed his fingers absently over the worn brass latches on the violin case. "If I were to win, if I were to gain the Rose Bride, it would be all they would need to chain me to this institution, with its promises and its dream—a dream it's taken me this long to realize I'm already trapped in. If I won, perhaps I might never wake up. And I _want_ to wake up. I want to live in the real world, even if it is more painful. It's genuine. That's all I care about.

"Which is why I will go, but I'll lose. One way or another. Even if I have to tear the rose from my own chest, I'll lose, but at least I'll have gone up there. At least I'll have done _something_. It's my responsibility. I can't run away from it anymore. I owe him that much."

"'Him' . . .?" Miki asked the world outside the window.

"Up until now I thought I could solve everything by running away, and in doing that I was worse than I ever accused anyone else of being. How could I reasonably think I could solve anything by doing nothing? Only through action can a person hope to resolve anything, but whether that means the end for my own dream . . ."

He shrugged a sigh. "I don't know. I suppose that's out of my hands now. I've wasted every opportunity that's been given me, always reassuring myself with the lie that there'll be another, somewhere down the line, and in the meantime I've been too blind or too arrogant to realize I didn't deserve one. If it's too late for me to be forgiven now, I can't say I don't deserve that. I'll just have to accept it and learn to go on living like everyone else."

The resignation that saturated Quatre's poise may have been related to the prospect of the duel, even if his words were clearly not. What was clear to the other two was that they were meant for someone else.

"At least," he said aloud to himself, "at least then I'll know for certain if I ever had that chance."

The watch clicked and the counter stopped. A surprised look came over Miki's features.

"Why are you telling _us_ this?" said Juri.

Quatre looked up, momentarily startled, as though he had forgotten whom he was with and what he was doing. His brows furrowed. "I don't know," he said, shaking his head to himself. He was silent for a long moment, until a smile broader than those shy ones that preceded it came onto his lips.

"I'm sorry," he said as he packed his violin away. His motions had a new energy to them, a determination, that struck them as so different from his mood just a few seconds before. "I have to go. There's something I have to do before."

* * *

The Duelists' Field.

That was where the girl had told him to go. Sitting alone out past the track and sports fields, a mass of titan cypress grown thick around some sort of hill or large rock that formed its heart. At least, that was what he guessed it to be from the shape. Something that loomed so large and obvious over the far end of campus—what was it that kept students away from its shade during such a hot week?

The path leading in was deserted of all life. He felt like an intruder himself. Somewhere inside birds were chirping, ordinary birds, but in the stillness of this time of day and the solitude of the wood, their sounds seemed alien, like something out of Earth's prehistoric past. The harsh angle of the evening sun created a scene in chiaroscuro among those few outermost branches it could reach.

There was just enough light coming through to guess the hour. Quatre's invitation said to meet his opponent at eight; Trowa was early with plenty of time to spare. But it never hurt to be prepared.

Not far in, he arrived at the gate. Even with forewarning, he had not known what to expect. Rectangular pools of water lined the path, the concrete around them covered sporadically with patches of moss. The gate itself was the same whitewashed stone of the school, grown darker with age and years in the shade. The single handle emerged from a carved-out circle, from which the doors seemed to ripple outward. Above them, shielding the entrance with its wings, was a stone bird. One would have hesitated to call it a statue glancing at it, but he might not have known why right away.

One might have found it imposing. It was precisely for that reason that Trowa was drawn to it. His only hesitation, the knowledge that once he opened that door he would not be able to take back anything that happened inside. Automatically he put his right hand on the handle. He could feel the latch as the handle budged. But the door stayed put.

"Naturally, we can't just have anyone stumbling across our school's big secret," the girl had said, "can we? You'll come to a gate with a single handle. It'll most likely be locked—"

"How do I get in, then?"

She grinned at his ignorance. It was a condescending look, but he didn't mind it.

"You use the ring you were given, of course. The _Rose Seal_. What did you think it was for?"

He switched hands. Somehow, it felt more comfortable this way, as if his fingers were slipping into grooves made by hundreds of hands over centuries. Immediately he felt something cool like water hit the ring on his finger. A laser? The latch gave and, curious, he bent his head to look, but the door was already changing as he did so.

Gears and pumps were moving inside; he could hear the machinery's rumbling inside the thick walls. Water cycled though, pouring down from the open mouths of spigots into the pools lining the path. Stone ground against stone as the bird dissolved into formless pieces of a puzzle, slowly reshaping into something else. He waited for the process to finish, unable to follow the shifting pieces. Whoever had constructed this entry had surely had it in mind to disorient the duelists who came here. He would not allow himself to fall for that trick. It was only a machine, after all.

When the machine at last stopped, and each piece locked into place with a final _shunk_, the end product was an open gate crowned with a rose, its stone petals unfolding upwards. It was an ugly, incongruous sight, this rendition of such a light and delicate thing in stone, as if someone had attempted to replicate a dragonfly's wings with 2x4's and plywood.

The same could not be said, however, for the spiral staircase that seemed to materialize out of the darkness inside. The wide white stairs, each one perfectly proportioned and immaculate of chips or moss, could even be called seductive. Like a strange fan it unfolded and curled around its center post—like filaments curling around a pale backbone, the fossilized remainders of the shell of some rooted, coiled sea animal, some crinoidal, gastropodal creature that had gone unknown on the earth for hundreds of millions of years.

And it ended somewhere far above his head, high up in the forest's canopy. Where or how it ended, no one would be able to tell from the ground. It intrigued Trowa nonetheless. And he proceeded driven in equal parts by duty and curiosity: to see what lay beyond those steps that disappeared into the darkness above—to discover what it was everyone was so adamant the school was hiding.

He stepped onto the first stone. The bottom of his shoe made a dull sound on the step, as though the sound had been sucked up by the heavy air immediately as it was born.

Despite it, the next step came naturally, without hesitation.

* * *

•

* * *

The phone on the other end rang three times, then a click.

Trowa held his breath. He was sure of the time, yet he still held doubts, fears. That he might be confronted with his betrayal. That it might be _him_ on the other side. . . .

"Winner residence."

It was a female voice. Irea, he guessed. "Is Quatre there?"

He could hear her sudden smile when she recognized his voice. "Hello, Trowa! No, I'm so sorry, you missed him. Father and I just got back from the airport."

"Oh." He was flooded with relief, and remorse.

"So, do you mind my asking what happened? We missed you the other day. Quatre was so disappointed you didn't make it to the farewell party."

He closed his eyes. He leaned his forehead against the cold wall. "I couldn't get a ride." That at least was partly true. He hadn't actually asked his guardian for one. Even if he had, Mr. Bloom's decisions always depended on his current mood concerning Trowa: mostly, whether or not he wanted to acknowledge his existence. The whole day had been spent pacing by that man's office, watching the back of the head that looked too much like his own bend over the antique walnut desk. Watching the hours go by on the clock on the mantle. Avoiding Cathrine's questioning him: Wasn't there somewhere he was planning on going today?

"That's too bad. I wish you would have called me. I would have picked you up."

"I didn't think of that," he lied. A guilty man thinks of everything.

A long awkward moment of silence hung on the line. Then Trowa said, "Well . . . when you talk to Quatre, tell him I'm sorry I couldn't make it?"

"Of course." The ensuing pause was agonizing. She didn't believe him either. "Well . . . take care."

* * *

Defiance drove him on. It increased exponentially with every step, filling him with a sense of determination and righteousness that he had not been able to heed sufficiently in the past. A superstitious person could blame it on magnetism, the beckoning of a destiny that was so absolute no one could resist its pull.

However, no external force was so absolute, so overpowering as that which existed inside. Destiny, fortune, chance—whatever one wished to call it, it played second to action. Too long had he straddled the fence that ostensibly separated love from hate, even as they bled unstoppable into each other below—too long had he let his indecisiveness have hold of his self.

But not anymore.

_Sors immanus et inanis, rota tu volubilis. . . ._

The words returned to him suddenly with the mechanical turning of the path. The steady persistence of a ball clock slowly building up to twelve.

_Fate: monstrous and empty, you turning wheel, you are malevolent—well-being is in vain and turns to nothing. . . ._

One way or another, it had to be put to rest, this thing that he and Quatre had killed together. The Rose Bride was the answer. Quatre refused to fight for it. But Trowa's blonde page of swords was wrong: The fighting, not the prize itself but the possibility that he would either win or lose with finality, _that_was what held Quatre back. That was what he was afraid of, what he had always been afraid of.

The same fear existed within Trowa now; he could no longer deny it. It made his heartbeat quicken in his ears. But it was the same thing that kept him moving up . . .

Toward judgment.

* * *

They said at the dorms that they had not seen Triton since morning. Likewise, no one had had him as an opponent at fencing practice, and Dorothy, ever-observant, confirmed he had not entered the gym.

As bouts went on around him, Quatre could not help the feeling of helplessness that sat at the bottom of his stomach: Everyone looked alike in those white jackets and blank masks. The high school boys who played frisbee on the lawn or sat in the evening shadows talking and laughing together were indistinguishable from one another, identical green-blue phantoms who all looked like Trowa out of the corner of his eye.

Until, of course, upon closer scrutiny, they proved not to look like him at all.

Keep moving. . . .

He checked every table, every aisle of books in the library, jogged between abandoned classrooms to no avail. The echo of his polished shoes on the hallways' polished floors was a lonely sound. But he could not let it discourage him. He concentrated on the sound of his breathing instead, a constant rhythm of exhalation. There were only so many places to go. He was too close to acknowledge defeat. He would not, could not give up now.

He turned a corner, not noticing as someone called his name, and nearly ran into Juri.

He startled her. "Quatre," she said, "what are you still doing here? Shouldn't you be on your way—"

"I know I'm running out of time," he said while fighting to catch his breath, "but there's something I have to do first. By any chance, have you seen him?"

"Seen who?"

"Trowa. Triton." He shook his head. "My friend."

"You won't find him here," said a new voice.

They looked up to see Nanami coming down the hall toward them, a triumphant smile firmly in place on her lips. It was a look that sparked dread in Quatre.

"What do you mean?"

* * *

Skidding to a stop at the apartment complex, he kicked the foot brake down and hopped off the bike. Then dashed up the stairs to the third floor. Except for the echoes of kids playing at the basketball court at the end of the block, the place seemed quite empty for an early summer midday, and it was a gamble when he rapped on one particular door.

But it did open, and a tired and curious Nichol greeted him. "Barton. What are you doing here?"

"I have a favor to ask of you," Trowa said. He must have looked up to something, because the young man's thick eyebrows arched suspiciously. Trowa elaborated: "Teach me everything you know."

Nichol slumped against the door frame. "You've gotta be kidding me—"

"About fencing, of course. I want to beat Quatre."

Now Nichol smiled. That must have been something he never thought he'd hear. "That I can do."

* * *

"What?" Quatre and Juri said simultaneously.

"I said, he accepted the terms and agreed to duel in Quatre's place as his second." Nanami tilted her head up in irritation at having to repeat herself. "He's probably on his way to the meeting place as we speak."

"What did you say to him?" Quatre asked.

She shrugged innocently. "Nothing but the facts."

"That's a riot," said Juri, forcing a bitter laugh.

"Why should I lie to that guy?" Nanami asked her. "I didn't even have to sell the idea or anything. He wanted to do it." "But that wasn't your place. Nanami, you don't know the situation!" "I don't know why you're so upset!" the girl insisted. "I should think you would thank me for what I've done. Quatre was in a predicament, he put the school in a predicament, and I've solved it for him. What more is there to know?"

"But he was going to duel!"

Juri grabbed her arm, but Nanami shook it off, her eyes flashing with surprise and indignation that someone would touch let alone speak to President Touga's little sister that way. "That's not what I heard," she said in her own defense. "I hope you're not suggesting this is _my_ fault. _I_ was only trying to help. _Quatre's_ the one who was on the fence the whole time! He missed his chance! _Someone_ had to step up."

"You didn't do it for him," Juri said, but her accusation mattered little.

Quatre had already turned and left them at a sprint. There was nothing more he needed to hear, no time to argue and deny further what was already happening. Swinging into the stairwell, he took the steps two at a time. Either luck or sheer will kept him from tripping. But if he didn't hurry, if he couldn't make it in time—

No. He shook his head. There could be no "if." He _had_ to.

* * *

"You'd be surprised how much you can learn about a person by their behavior on the strip," Nichol told him, parrying his attack effortlessly. Trowa had heard it so many times it was past the point of irritation; it became a mantra. Each point as staccato as the beating of their blades. "Their personalities, their strengths. Their doubts. Like any language, it's the subtle variations in its usage, word choice, pronunciation that give someone away."

Confidence without arrogance, authority, and a grudging patience that had learned to coexist with frustration—that's what Nichol's calculated moves had to say about him. He would not let emotion drag him down, instead focusing the passion of the sport to become the force behind his thrusts. It was something to emulate. It showed through the surface of his performance like a bruise as he replicated Quatre's moves. Lunge to sixte, parry, counterattack. "Imagine I'm Winner," Nichol said, as though it needed to be.

That was easier said than done. "But you're far better than he is."

Behind his mask, Nichol smirked. "Then what's the problem?"

He went to deceive Trowa, planning to dip his blade under Trowa's when the parry came and score a touch where there would be no opposition. Not quite as subtle as Quatre—and on reflection, purposefully—but Trowa caught the feint. His parry was hesitant, far from ideal, but enough for the button of Nichol's weapon to land just wide of the target, and a touch. Letting out a breath of relief, his counter parry was more confident. "I saw it coming," Trowa said aloud. Some set-up of the line he only recognized now that it was made obvious to him.

"Good," said Nichol, "but don't get sloppy yet." Even as he said so, he scored a touch to the hip. "You may have survived the feint, but don't forget you're still in the game."

"Right," Trowa said between breaths. Behind the mesh of the mask he glowed, knowing it was possible.

They retired to the bleachers, where Une watched and his friends cheered him as they waited for some word as to whether he was abandoning them that summer. Still student body president in mind though she had graduated the month before, Une duly handed him the student exchange information he had requested. She only now suspected, if Trowa read her straying glances correctly, that he may have had some ulterior motive for asking her to meet him here. She and Nichol quickly established that they had both made no plans for after.

It was harder to stay the suspicions of his friends, however, that were roused by that small pile of booklets and brochures. "Oh. It's just scholarship information," was what Trowa told them, holding it closer to his body. It wasn't much of a stretch.

Duo and Wufei looked at him with surprise. "What? You're thinking about that already?" said the latter.

"We're only going into high school."

"It's never too soon to think ahead."

"This from the guy who has an A in every subject," Duo teased.

"This school doesn't provide much of a challenge," Trowa said more to himself than either of them. Not anymore. . . .

* * *

The villain, the opposer, King of Cats—that was the role he had been only too content to play as long as he reassured himself that at least he was no traitor who abandoned his truest friends.

But he was that too.

The column's girth suddenly expanded, as did the circumference of the stairs as he began to circle the base of the platform, treading on purposefully through its shadow, his gaze focused on those shallow steps that continued to rise endlessly above him.

The dream.

He knew now that it was true in some sense. It was true _here_. Somewhere beyond the borders of this school there was a world that truly existed, and that he abandoned without quite knowing what he was doing. Restricted it to his memory, buried its inhabitants under cobblestones and whitewashed plaster. Chose to live among the phantoms who had done the same to him. The resentment he had nurtured all through the past year for his friend now set itself against him.

_Fate is against me, in health and virtue, driven on and weighed down, always enslaved. . . ._

I will become everything I hate, he vowed as the immaculate blue of the sky came into view through the wrought iron tympanum of a crumbling stone archway. I will become everything he hates. To revolutionize this world. It's no less than what we deserve. It's the only way this will end.

_So at this hour, without delay, pluck the vibrating strings—_

_For Fate strikes down the strong man. . . ._

At last he reached the top of the stairs.

* * *

**Chapter notes:** The _Romeo and Juliet_ quotes can be found in Act III Scene Five, lines 51-64.

_"Sors immanis . . ._/Fate—monstrous . . .": from the opening/closing of Carl Orff's _Carmina Burana_, "O fortuna" (the piece that inspired "Absolute Destiny Apocalypse").

The piece I originally had in mind for Quatre's solo is Max Bruch's Adagio appassionato for violin and orchestra, Opus 57. Debussy always struck me as Quatre's piano style; I think his contemporary Bruch fills the violin half nicely.


	9. 

He stepped onto a wide stone platform, lined like the floor of the gym, only red as though from the wounds of past duelists and without the same clearness of purpose.

It was late in the evening. The forest he had come through to reach this place had disappeared, and not even the school's observatory tower could be seen, just as he was sure he had never seen this platform from the school. It was not something one could miss.

Yet he was above the trees. Nothing but the clear summer sky surrounded him on all sides. So powerful was the effect of that boundless backdrop that it was easy to feel weightless in the heavy air, to think the breeze that tugged at his uniform could coax him from his feet. With almost nothing to create a shadow, a straying mind might think the next step would send him over the edge into the abyss, or misjudge how close the precipice really was and fall forever into nothingness. There were a few clouds in the sky now, far and few on the horizon, as though the heavens were tired of their own novelty. Diaphanous stromatolitic formations glowed light gold and pink in the late hour against a sky the same blue-green as his uniform.

He looked up to follow a lone contrail shooting across the blue—

—And what he saw for the first time in the sky directly above him, he could not for his life believe.

A massive castle rotated there over his head, its crystalline domes pointing straight down at the center of the dueling platform. From this strange, upside-down bird's eye perspective, lights of various colors pulsed among the towers like the lights of an alien spaceship. It hovered like one as well far above him, somehow, for there were no strings that could have supported such great mass. The whole thing defied the laws of physics. The impossible size of it threatened to expand and engulf him, yet he could only stand there, with head tilted up, rapt, without any fear for himself. In awe.

"My God." His voice seemed to come not from himself. The sound was sucked away by the wind, into the empty space that surrounded the platform. "What is that?"

"Nothing more than an illusion. A trick of light."

Trowa turned at the sound of a voice he had only heard once before, at lunch on Saturday. Touga Kiryuu, the young man he knew only as the student council president, stood at the corner opposite. A ragged red line joined their feet across the platform, a tenuous and worn tether. And from the president's feet, glinting in a straight line parallel to his body and up to his hand, was an elegant sabre. Trowa knew he must be the brother to whom that blond girl had referred: his literal page of swords. And Judgment slowly turned above their heads.

He looked up again, repeated to himself: "An illusion."

Touga shrugged. "Or perhaps something real after all. Isn't that what you're here to find out?"

With a gentle smile, the student council president glanced to his right. Only then did Trowa saw Anthy Himemiya standing there.

But she was not herself. He did not need to be told she was the Rose Bride whose identity he had secretly wondered at: the prize Trowa would be fighting for, if all that he had been told was correct. That knowledge surprisingly affected him little. She wore a red dress now, sleeveless and with a long, full skirt. Gold threads and epaulettes adorned the bodice, and a thin crown sat atop her head. The breeze that reached them so far up into the atmosphere moved the fabric of her skirt and a few stray hairs, but otherwise she stood still as a statue, waiting. Only the occasional blink of her green eyes behind her glasses indicated a life, a consciousness behind them. Though he might have once thought otherwise, he had never seen eyes that seemed so cold.

Trowa's legs took him forward of their own volition. He knew instinctively what needed to be done. In a way, he had been training all year for this. Himemiya attached a rose to the left side of his chest, a light mahogany color with dark leaves and a musky scent. This I will defend against all opposers, he recalled, watching her dark fingers.

Touga said to him, "I assume you know what to do, if you've come this far. Mr. Winner already explained the objectives to you?"

Trowa almost corrected him, but something stopped him before he could. Just as it had with the blond girl—some feeling that it was best if everyone believed what they wanted. He nodded slowly. He recalled Juri's words. "Fight the one engaged to the Rose Bride," he heard himself say, "for the power to revolutionize the world."

By the satisfied look on Touga's face, he knew he was on the right track.

Trowa took the sword offered him. He ran his fingers over the sabre's thin blade, over the metal arabesques of the hand guard that seemed distinctly meant for someone other than himself. Someone who thought if he merely apologized, any hurt might be forgiven. "But who _is_ that one?"

Touga's only response was to look over Trowa's shoulder, where Utena Tenjou was stepping through the gate.

Her dark boy's uniform had changed. Now it was ruffled at the hem, white over red under black, and decorated like a soldier's: Fourragere swung from one side of her chest, one of Ohtori's white roses was pinned to the other, flashing in the late light against the red lip of the pocket.

Trowa's uniform, too, had been transformed to suit a duelist some unidentifiable time ago. His blue-green jacket was now double-breasted and studded with two rows of brass buttons, and clung to his narrow waist. Gold cords hung heavy around his right arm, held in place by red and gold chevroned bands on both shoulders. The cuffs that reached almost to his elbows were of the same scheme, like the cuffs of an officer who had earned their privilege. There was something thrilling about seeing himself so changed, a thrill of being caught wearing the colors of the enemy. But then, it had never really been his uniform to begin with.

Utena's eyes widened when she realized he was her challenger. The determination set into her face faltered—momentarily, but enough. "Triton? What are you doing here?"

"I've come to challenge you for the Rose Bride's hand." The line rolled off his tongue as easily as if he'd heard it whispered from the edge of the stage. He showed her the ring on his own hand; it was all the proof anyone could need that what he said was true. "It seems to be a condition of my enrollment here."

"But it wasn't you who was supposed to be here. You're not a member of the student council. No one can make you fight."

"On the contrary, I don't really have a choice. What you say is correct: No one is forcing me. I chose to accept the invitation even though this fight was not meant for me. However . . ."

He let his gaze slip down to the sabre in his grip, the perfect and purposeful curve of its blade. How it seemed almost to speak to him. "I cannot deny, now that I'm here, that this is the reason I was accepted into this school. It's the reason I came to begin with."

She started. Something he said struck close to home.

"You're wrong," she said, however. "What about all that stuff you said about Quatre being your inspiration? Was that just a lie?"

"That and this are one and the same. I wouldn't expect you to understand."

"Then he put you up to this? He thought as long as he sent someone in his place, he wasn't breaking a promise?"

"No." Trowa matched her gaze. Amazing how calm he felt in that conviction, and how powerful. "It's true I'm doing this for him. But I am also doing it to spite him. Blame him, if you want, for what I do. Blame him for who he is. The truth is, he doesn't want me here. That's how I know it's the right place to be. The last thing in the world Quatre wants is for me to have the Rose Bride. Coward that he is, he doesn't want her himself. However, he knows if _I_ win, I will have defeated him once and for all."

"How could you say that if he's really your friend?" Utena said. "How could you treat him that way? Never mind that—how could you do that to _Himemiya_? Don't you realize how selfish you sound? I thought you cared about her. I thought you were a kind person!"

"And you were mistaken," he said, merely stating the fact. "You must have had the wrong person in mind all along. Don't you know I'm a no-good, spoiled, bastard son? A born traitor?"

"I refuse to believe something like that."

He glanced down briefly, amused. "Then perhaps you would be more willing to buy something along the lines of destiny. After all, that's the reason _you're_ here. Isn't it?"

She was still as she continued to regard him, as he stood between her and Himemiya, not trusting herself to respond. He had touched something with his words that was buried deep inside herself, some feeling she had not cared to analyze before or at present in any depth, for fear of what she might find if she started too far down the path.

Yet there remained in her that need to protect something that was important. Above all else, and despite all else, that remained. What happened when two people at odds with one another shared the same goal, she knew only too well. Well enough to dread the consequences.

"Even if that was the case," she said at last, "you and I cannot be destined for the same thing. It's impossible."

He raised his arm to an en garde stance then, aiming the point of his sabre at the rose on her beast.

"If that's what you believe," he told her, "then fight. Prove what you believe is true. Prove me wrong."

Please. . . .

Utena retrieved her sword. She held it out before her at the ready, both hands around the golden grip that ended in a pink rose pommel. Her poise, the spacing of her feet, while determined, were amateurish; she let her nerves be written on her sleeve for any rival to read at leisure. Trowa pitied her for it, at the same time as happy certainty surged through him. If he could succeed in beating Quatre before, he could not expect to lose against an opponent such as this.

In the distance, the bells tolled. Not for the hour, but for them.

Up here above the trees, where time did not exist.

He attacked first. Lowering his blade, he rushed at her, breaking the tension, striking where he knew even she would be able to defend easily. He had to know what she would do—he had to listen to her reactions, to read her decisions, to learn everything that had brought her to this point. Then he could set up his victory.

And she did not hesitate to engage him. Her parry was strong, the effort behind it great, greater than it needed to be, passionate—so opposite of Quatre's precision and arrogant ease. He could not have known how much she had improved over just the past few months, but her lack of formal training was evident. Like an ugly pipe roses couldn't quite grow over.

Trowa let his instincts guide him. He guarded himself against her attacks easily; her body's movements gave her intentions away long before she made her move. Needless to say, however, her aim was sound. She pushed him back with a steady stream of thrusts and cuts. The ring of steel on steel as the blades batted and slid against each other set a solid rhythm that could only lead to one inevitable climax, whether either one was the victor or the other.

Destiny did not care which.

_I bemoan the wounds of Fortune  
With weeping eyes,  
For the gifts she made me  
She perversely takes away.  
It is written in truth  
She has a fine head of hair,  
But when it comes to seizing opportunity  
She is bald._

He sidestepped her running attack easily. Predicting her sword would contact either Trowa's blade or his rose, she was not prepared when gravity pulled her down.

She stumbled past him. Turning her head to keep sight of him over her shoulder, her pink hair stuck like a veil to the side of her face and her eyes shone with fierce determination.

"I won't let you win!" she said.

Trowa's blade followed hers, even as he retreated a step.

"Then, by all means," he said. "I know you can do better than this. You'll have to, if you want to protect what it is you appear to care so much about."

Utena growled at his sarcasm as she whirled to face him again. "What, doesn't a self-named traitor have anything to protect?"

"Not anymore."

"Then what reason do you even have to be fighting!"

He was beside her in a second. On reflex, she had brought her sabre to bear. The sudden pressure as his blade bore down on the handguard of her sword brought a gasp from her. But she remained determined, matching his force.

"What reason have I _not_ to?" The effort of the duel was beginning to creep into his own voice, though it remained incongruously calm and reasonable, as he matched her gaze across the crossed blades. "It got to you too, didn't it? The dream they've erected in this place? You can't resist it when it calls you to come and take what you deserve. I won't be satisfied with what-ifs any longer. I have to see, one way or another, if this is indeed what is in store for me. If this was what I was invited here to see. Isn't that reason enough?"

"No!" He sounded as though he were reciting someone else's lines; there was a lack of faith beneath them that remained hidden from view. Like a cavity inside a load-bearing pillar, and Utena feared the consequences when it finally buckled under the weight.

It was almost certainly a trap, but she said regardless: "You have to make your own destiny. It can't already be written. Otherwise there is no point! To these duels, this school, life—any of it!"

"If that's the case," he said, bearing down on her, "then I will bring it all down."

With a grunt she pushed his weight off, and thrust in the minute window his recoil provided her. The point of her sabre sped toward the rose pinned to his breast—

And only narrowly missed as he turned his body, tearing a single petal down the central vein. But she could not dislodge it.

As she felt hope momentarily recede from her, Trowa looked down to assess the damage. One who knew him better might have caught the subtlest glimmer of satisfaction in those olive green eyes before he lunged toward her again.

_On Fortune's throne  
I used to sit raised up,  
Crowned with  
The various flowers of prosperity;  
Though I may have flourished  
Happy and blessed,  
Now I fall from the peak  
Deprived of glory._

* * *

Through the rose-crowned gate and up the immaculate stairs two or three at a time he ran, wasting no time looking around him at those secrets that had plagued his mind this past week and were now finally revealed. They had lost their mystery for him. Now, they were nothing but an obstacle. A cold machine winding forever upward like a clock.

Quatre detested it even more, now that he saw the truth with his own eyes. For the cruelty designed conscientiously into it, for every extra second it cost him, every heartbeat it kept him from his goal, he detested it.

Utena didn't stand a chance against Trowa, against who he was now. That was why. He had to make it in time, before Trowa could strike the final blow. If he didn't . . .

Then it will truly be over.

That truth rang clear in Quatre's head. It drove him onward, gave him strength, even as it threatened to pull him down. Even as his legs burned from these endless stairs and his mind swam from going in circles. He tripped once, and it allowed his exertion to catch up with him. Only then did he realize how out of breath he was, how badly his muscles ached. But he pushed himself to his feet, grunting with the effort. He had to keep moving. For them both.

This _can't_ be our destiny, he told himself. I can't allow him to make this mistake—_my_ mistake. No more than I can allow myself to sit back and allow my most important thing to slip away. Again.

And I won't. I won't lose it without a fight!

* * *

What he deserved. What _they_ deserved. That question drummed on with every step, every breath of his duel, without answer.

He knew what it should be, even if the figures did not add up. He knew what it was they deserved, and what they did not. Happiness was something to be earned, not to be tossed about with frivolity, marred with spite and resentment, and irrational jealousy.

Quatre hated him. Even if he had never said so out loud, his anger on the fencing strip had been enough to make that plain. His selfish anger when he could not win was just as foolish and just as effective as the lack of satisfaction Trowa had felt in his own heart to have soundly defeated his old friend. God help them if they had ever met like this, with sharpened swords and only the sadistic impartiality of Heaven as their witness. Whether Quatre loved him still despite it all, as Trowa still loved him, was beyond relevance. The guilt he no doubt nurtured was in vain. Where Quatre had not been so bold, Trowa had spoken the truth for him. For that, he did not deserve forgiveness. The coldest region of Hell was reserved for traitors.

Taking turns, they had dug a hole so deep, the only way left to go was down. His punishment would come with the slow turning of the castle in the sky. A castle of hopes and dreams, it was said. And when he won, he would dash those virtues upon the bloody lines of the dreamtime over which they now paced. No one would have any choice but to despise him then.

As he only deserved.

_The wheel of Fortune turns;  
I go down, demeaned;  
Another is raised up;  
Far too high up  
Sits the king at the summit—  
Let him fear ruin!  
For under the axis is written  
Hecubam reginam._

The blood was pumping loud in Utena's ears, which already rang with the sounds of their swordplay. He kept her moving at a fast pace, pushing her back without pause with his barrage. All the while, his brows were calmly furrowed like a philosopher's. It shook her nerve. For his eyes alone were like lions', never wavering from hers down the lengths of their arms. He was relentless.

Fearing the edge of the platform might be approaching, she sidestepped a jab to her inside line, circling around his front. The rose appeared directly before her, unprotected; and she went for it.

But a split second too late. He caught her intention. With a growl of frustration, she increased the ferocity of her counterparry.

Trowa for his part felt an ease and grace come over his body, dictating his movements, that did not seem to arise from his own person. Did Quatre feel this way as he executed a croise with perfect form, hearing the applause? Or when the music took him, and allowed him, for a few tenuous moments, to reach perfection?

How did it feel for Hector to face his opponent in that man's armor, with his weapons—or for his opponent, for that matter, to have his own reflection turned against him? Trowa wondered, as they moved together in a dangerous tango back toward the center of the platform. For just a moment, he thought he saw Quatre fighting in Utena's place. The reluctant contempt of a cornered animal that had been in his old friend's eyes Wednesday night he saw in hers now; the swing of her fourragere and the fringe of her epaulettes mirrored the desperation in Quatre's evasive excuses.

One minute mistake was all he needed. And as their blades crossed, the tip of her sword went through one of the gaps in the metal work of his handguard. Circling her sword with his own, Trowa expected a sharp flick would be enough to release her hold. But she held on, faltering a bit when the swords awkwardly disengaged, and stepped away from him.

"Never give up until the end," he said when it was clear she was breathing hard. Hadn't someone told him that, when he made that vow a summer ago. . . .

Was he mocking her, or only deriding himself? It was almost impossible to tell. Utena gripped the hilt more tightly. She steeled herself for another onslaught, though each breath was not without some pain in this heavy air.

In her silence, he smiled. "If fate is not inevitable, if it's only a fiction, then one of us has to make it, as you say. No prince will help you either." No knight, who smiled through his deception—looking the other way as he stabbed his own comrade in arms in the back—would raise a finger in their defense now.

"There is no prince."

And saying so, he raised his sword toward her again, inviting her to attack. The knowledge they were nearing the end was clear in Trowa's mind, just as the white rose on her breast was focused in his vision. _That_ was his opponent, in so many ways, rather than Utena herself.

Something changed about her in that moment, however. He could sense it if not see it. Within each person lies a breaking point at which he finds that deeper function buried in the mind called second nature, when he transcends all the doubts that hold his conscious self back. That was how she seemed when she rushed at him. A light came into her blue eyes that was at once foreign to him and nostalgic. She had something to protect, something to believe in.

Something he couldn't help resent. What made her think that would help her? That shining thing had never done a wit for him. What had felt so precious had turned out to be fool's gold. That was what he would prove to her. For that reason alone, he could not lose.

He could not be defeated again, after all this time. After all he had done for his friend—and to him. Trowa bent his sword arm, ready to meet her blow.

It all happened so quickly.

When it was over, Utena crouched before him, one leg bent under her, her sword arm extended. Trowa remembered parrying her attack and thrusting straight at her rose. He should have hit the mark.

But his blade remained in the air over her shoulder, no white rose in sight. Instead, the point of Utena's blade dimpled his uniform above the naked stem still attached to his breast pocket. It was the mahogany-colored rose that sat face down on the white stone by his feet, every petal still attached within the severed calyx.

Relief washing over her, Utena slowly retracted her sword from his breast. "Triton—"

"No. That can't be it. . . . It can't just end like this."

There was an eerie tone to his words as he stared over Utena's head. His hand went to what remained of Himemiya's rose, and plucked it from the uniform. Like a carnation that had once been pitched aside. . . .

This was all wrong. The flower, this place, his failure . . .

"But it _is_ the end!" Utena said, though she worried her words might fall on deaf ears. He lowered his sword, but his grip only tightened around the handle. Utena flinched automatically, falling back on her heel, ready to leap into action if he decided he hadn't had enough.

He wouldn't attack her now, after it was over, would he? Was she wrong not to believe what he said of himself? Had he really betrayed those he cared about? And if so, what was there to stop him from doing the same to her, someone he barely knew? "Your rose is gone, Triton," she said. "It's over. Those are the rules. Fair and square. The duel is over, you have to stop fighting now!"

Trowa took a step back, shame taking him suddenly in its burning grip. Over. . . . And nothing had changed. Nothing. "But this isn't what I deserve."

"It is!"

She hardly knew why she said what she did, she whose place it was not to judge, or whether it would only encourage him to raise his sword against her. But it seemed right. She met his eyes defiantly. "Maybe things do turn out the way they're supposed to. You can't change everything. Some things you just have to accept as they are, whether they're for the best or not. That's just the way it goes. Why do you have to keep fighting it?"

He had nothing now. He felt that in the depths of his person: Quatre gone, along with any possibility of revenge for either of them. Trowa had lost to him after all, and it would change nothing. Nor could he make everything that still stood between them vanish. After all this, still there was no resolution.

Nothing had changed!

He showed no sign of having heard her. She yelled, in one last desperate try to snap him out of his fugue:

"Why can't you just be happy!"

Trowa started.

He did not see the sincerity in her blue eyes, or the tears of exhaustion and relief only now beginning to form in them. It was her words that penetrated him, soaked into him like a light rain, their familiarity. . . .

No, he knew better than to believe them. She might say anything to put him at ease, and save herself. No words could change the fact she had defeated him and, with that, stolen from him once and for all that one thing too small to ask for, yet that had meant everything: a resolution. She could not truly understand—the Rose Bride could not help him understand what he already knew in his heart, even if it had been twisted around the wrong way all this time.

It _was_ there, no matter how much he had tried, and still tried, in vain and in foolishness to deny it, kill it, bury it. What he had told Utena was wrong.

He did have something to protect.

That memory of happiness was with him even now. Even if it was far away, even if he could never relive it—even if that revelation proved a more painful solution than burying the truth inside his soul—Ohtori could not take that from him now. At least he had his pain. At least he had that memory. They could not tell him it wasn't real, that it wasn't genuine.

It had been.

The evening sky was turning red, hitting everything with its burnishing light, the clouds not least among them.

But before his open eyes, Trowa saw nothing but blue. The heavens might be turning as ever before in their cold consistency, ignorant and uncaring of man's machinations; but far below, the axis was crumbling on its foundation. With the patience of the continents, the white platform dipped imperceptibly under his feet, slowly sinking into the blue abyss. The wind swept through. And with it, the scent of grass on the first warm day of spring filled his nostrils, and he heard someone calling his name faintly, as if from a hundred miles away.

_So food gave me no pleasure,_ a voice whispered beside his ear, into the sky. _Nor could I sleep—_

"I made this for you . . . so you could spot my trouble from it . . ."

Utena heard him mumble something toward the sky, but the words made no sense. "What?" she started to ask him, thinking he had meant to tell her something important. The metallic clatter of his sabre dropping from his hand startled her back to herself.

I made this for you, he repeated to himself. However . . .

_However . . ._ "I made a mistake."

Yes, he thought, I tried to—the gravest mistake of all—and I would have, if I could have—but I failed.

And for that he felt only relief.

It flooded him, and now he realized just how tired he had been. Tired of everything about this place, tired of fighting. To rest his eyes in sleep—God, he wanted that more than anything. More than a creature wants for food or water, he ached for that wonderful nothingness that waited for him behind his eyelids. The whole world was so heavy, even to lift an arm was so much effort. He would fall off the edge into the abyss if he gave in to it now, but . . .

He could not resist the pull of gravity, and he did not want to. Not any longer. Miles of atmosphere rushed by him. The white sun cooled the sweat on his brow. He could almost feel the soft grass at his back, catching him. . . .

It was such a nonchalant gesture, Utena thought nothing of it when he closed his eyes and breathed in deep, as one does when inhaling a scent too faint for anyone else to catch. It seemed like only a slackening of the limbs, and then he began to fall. In slow motion it seemed to happen. And, though only a few paces away, Utena could do nothing but watch, too caught off her guard to even reach out—

"_Trowa!_"

The name was foreign to her, but it resonated with so much feeling she knew who it was meant for instinctively. She turned, but all she saw was a white shape rushing by her.

A slender hand clasped tight around the gilded cuff of Trowa's uniform.

Such a simple touch, but up until this moment, it had seemed too impossible that any contact between them should not be threaded through with violence and hate. Quatre's breath momentarily left him. And, having finally reached what he'd come for, his legs trembled beneath him. He managed somehow to pull Trowa to him as he collapsed to his knees in the center of the platform. All that mattered now was that he did not let go.

And Quatre didn't. Not even to check whether Trowa still had his rose. What did it matter anymore whether he'd won the Rose Bride or not, now that he had his old friend in his arms again? And not, for once, as enemies. That was all that should have mattered when they'd met a week ago on the fencing strip. He had been too blind, too stupid not to realize it then. That's what he felt now with all his heart. Now that he had this, he could not understand how he had ever let go.

"I'm sorry," Quatre said. "I'm so sorry." The words rolled automatically from his lips, just as tears of relief began to form in his eyes.

Let them. There was something he had meant to say, something that must have run through his head a hundred times as he ran through the halls of this school, hoping to catch Trowa before this moment came, but he could not remember it now. There were no other words to express what he felt. The rough cords of Trowa's epaulette scratched his cheek, but Quatre only pressed harder against it. Even that was only further proof that this was real.

And nothing was more important than that.

"I'm sorry," he repeated over again, whispering it into Trowa's ear. Not caring if it garnered a response, or forgiveness. Not caring if Trowa was awake to hear him or not, or if he would remember any of this the next day. Nor did he spare a thought for the three who watched them like silent statues, or pause to look up at the castle that turned steadily over their heads. Those things did not exist in this moment.

Quatre closed his eyes, a smile coming to his lips through his sweat and tears; and the truth he had realized on that cemetery bench four years ago returned to him with the same ferocity and sincerity of feeling.

After everything they'd been through together, it might have been true to say each hardly knew the other. But they knew each other's hearts.

That's how he could go on saying it: I'm sorry. And this time, he knew exactly what he was apologizing for. His reasons were too many to count. But Trowa, he knew, at least, would catch his meaning.

* * *

When Touga heard Winner call the Bloom boy by a different name, it struck him for the first time that perhaps the one who called himself Triton had not been as truthful as he seemed. But what more could one expect from a duelist? It piqued his suspicion, drew his focus unintentionally away from Tenjou.

But there was something about they way the two young men embraced, without any shame for those around them, that aroused his disgust. It wasn't that unnatural symmetry; on that front, he liked to think he did not judge. But how naïve they were, he thought, to fool themselves that something like what they had could last. They were already in high school. As far as he was concerned, it was time they grew up.

Then he realized, with a bit of surprise, that for some time he had been twisting the rose seal on his finger with his thumb, back and forth.

Anthy said, "I wonder why it is we always try to destroy the things we care about most."

Touga turned to her. It was not the first time she had said something so profound and accusing it seemed not to come from herself. What else lay hidden within the Rose Bride, waiting for the right force to break it through to the surface? "What do you mean, Anthy?"

She met his gaze. "But you _know_ what I mean. Don't you, President Touga?"

When he turned back, silent, she elaborated.

"I suppose, when our feelings become so strong we no longer have control over them, it would be easier if we simply did nothing, and let nature take its course. Change does occur naturally, so we should let it, not resist it. Wouldn't you agree?"

"If we did, we'd only be avoiding responsibility," Touga rebutted. Yet even as he said so, he felt he had entrapped himself in a Socratic web of his own design, and quickly dismissed any personal ramifications of that conclusion. Instinctively, he knew that was the easiest solution.

He did not see the smile of satisfaction that slowly bloomed on Anthy's lips.

* * *

•

* * *

"Did you hear, did you hear? The new transfer student mysteriously collapsed yesterday!"

"I heard! But what was it? Heat stroke? Tumors? _Food poisoning_?"

"Don't be melodramatic. The nurse said he was suffering from extreme exhaustion."

"Exhaustion? Is that all? That's not very romantic."

"What do you mean, 'is that all?' I said it was _extreme_, didn't I? It's nothing to mess around with!"

"Now who's being melodramatic, I wonder?"

When Juri entered their English class, she looked around despite herself. The other St. Gabriels students, Dorothy and Relena, were at their desks, gazing at a young, potted yellow rose that sat on the former's.

A strange feeling of disappointment arose from somewhere inside her when she didn't see _his_ face among the male students, even though she knew she shouldn't have expected to. Despite everything, despite how irrational it seemed to her, there had been that strange hope. It beat within when she least expected it. Perhaps it was the way he reminded her of someone dear, even if that dear someone was only an old friend. Perhaps it was only that, she assured herself, and nothing more.

She caught Miki's eye as she made her way to her seat. "Quatre hasn't come to class?" she said as much to him as herself. "That's not like him." It was not Quatre she was thinking about, however.

"He's been at the nurse's office all morning," the blue-haired boy told her with a knowing look.

And she nodded, having guessed it already. It was clear, and perhaps had always been, that Triton Bloom already had someone to fight for. She recalled what Quatre had confessed to her in the music room, the window into his heart he had opened with his solo—

It made her question the depth of her own pride. If they could have, if only for a moment, what had so far been denied her. . . . Was it possible nothing was ever too late? Was it possible she could give someone what Quatre had given his friend? Someone she had already met, long ago?

"He left us without a Romeo," she said.

Miki knew her well enough that it seemed needless to ask: "You want first dibs?"

A smile slowly spread across her lips. With a tilt in his direction, she said softly, "I believe I've quite had my fill of that part."

* * *

A warm breeze rustled the waves of roses as the young man stood looking up at the façade of the enormous building. Regarding it as his opponent, neither victorious nor beaten, this time from the inside. Polished shoes clicked on the brick, but this time they were not his.

"What is it?" Quatre asked gently as he came up beside him, hands in his pockets. "Having second thoughts?"

"No," Trowa answered. With one last glare at the administration building, the stylized roses in the stained glass windows far above their heads, he turned to his friend. For the first time in a year—perhaps longer—he felt truly at ease. He had been trapped in a dream for far too long. Running in circles. Wearying of it. There was no use pretending the opposite anymore. Now that he had finally awakened, his slight smile showed his newfound peace. "I need to do this. If I'm going to stay here, it should be as Trowa Barton, not some guy who never existed. I can't pretend anymore."

"They can't kick you out for applying under a false name. Can they?"

"I don't know." Trowa sighed, looking up again. "I suppose it's possible. Although I've had this strong feeling the whole time that they knew it was a false name to begin with." He turned to Quatre. "What will the girls say when they find out I've been deceiving them?"

"It'll all come back to them," Quatre said, knowing he meant Dorothy and Relena. "Give them some credit. They'll understand, even if they are aristocrats." He flashed a reassuring smile that had nothing to do with their old schoolmates.

Sobering, he answered the unspoken question: "I know. I'm terrified too."

Trowa nodded silently. Then it was Quatre's turn to face the building.

"If they do—" He straightened suddenly with resolve. "Send you away, that is, I'm going with you. Back to St. Gabriels, or wherever. It doesn't matter. I don't want to go through all this again."

It was a strange transformation that had come over the two of them. In their hearts they knew they had been changed permanently. They would never be able to return to the way things were before Ohtori entered their lives. It was a difficult concept to accept.

But in doing so, somehow they had found a chance to start anew. The awkwardness of acquaintance dictated their actions now. Each consoled himself that, with any luck, it would pass in time. Once they got to know each other better.

Trowa took a step toward him. An awkward moment passed before he finally decided only to place his hand on Quatre's arm. "You wouldn't really do that."

Quatre had not forgotten what he said before, about how much it meant to attend Ohtori, how great a privilege it was. How could he? Though it was difficult, he had to admit to himself Trowa was probably right.

But that couldn't change the way he felt. Anyone who walked by right then might have seen them and wondered if the rumors were true, but Quatre didn't care. He put one arm around his friend's shoulders and drew him close. If only he could keep Trowa there with that alone, and damn what anyone else decided should be their fate. He closed his eyes, gripped the fabric tighter. He didn't know the answer to that question. It wasn't his to answer. He only knew the last thing he wanted was to lose his friend again.

"Don't worry," Trowa whispered. "I'm not going anywhere."

* * *

Fin

* * *

_Je m'en souviens comme si c'était hier.  
Tour à tour nous soutenant,  
nous disputant, riant de nous-mêmes.  
Le souvenir de cette époque rayonnante  
reste gravé dans mon coeur.  
Je pense ne jamais pouvoir l'effacer, ni même l'oublier.  
Courant après mon rêve, je reste enchaîné.  
Cherchant à m'en libérer, mon rêve s'évanouit . . ._

I remember it as if it were yesterday.  
Helping each other in turn,  
fighting each other, laughing at ourselves.  
The memory of this radiant time  
remains engraved in my heart.  
I think I'll never be able to erase it, nor even forget it.  
Running after my dream, I remain in chains.  
Trying to free myself, my dream fades away . . .

—Gackt C., "Story"

* * *

**Chapter notes:** The interjected lyrics are from the second song in _Carmina Burana_, "Fortune plango vulnera/I bemoan the wounds of Fortune." "Hecubam reginam" is Queen Hecuba, famous for her reversal of fortunes.

Thank you for reading.


End file.
